


Breaking Apart

by jaded79



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-10
Updated: 2013-07-30
Packaged: 2017-12-08 02:23:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 23,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/755891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaded79/pseuds/jaded79
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This fic follows an Alternate Universe after the finale of Season 2.... What if Carol took Rick's invitation for people to leave if they didn't like his leadership? And Daryl just couldn't let her go alone...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N – So I used to write a lot for FanFiction.Net but sort of fell out of it due to lack of time over the past few months. I’m hoping to get back into writing and thought maybe I’d start transferring over some of my FFN stuff into AO and have my fics posted in both places. 
> 
> This is a story started a while ago (at the end of Season 2), and not yet at completion (although I do plan to finish it). It takes off from the finale of Season 2, so it’s definitely Alternative Universe from where TWD is now. 
> 
> Disclaimer – I own nothing and cannot claim credit for any people, places, or anything at all, but I'm so very glad that The Walking Dead creator doesn't mind if I borrow his creation and characters because it is oh so very fun to do so.

**Chapter 1**

She stared out the passenger window as the trees rolled past. She sighed. This was unreal. She had never thought he would come. She had never thought that he would actually stand up and say, "Wait…" and that he would grab the only bag he had left after leaving the farm and follow her into the woods and back to the vehicles.

It was after Rick's rant… they'd all stood there in silence after he'd screamed that if they didn't like his way of doing things, they could just go. Send him a postcard, he'd said. Everyone had been stunned by his outburst. He'd been a good leader; she knew that… she'd known that since the first time she met him, that he was a born leader. But she didn't trust him… not after he'd kept information from them. And even less after hearing that he'd killed Shane – not because she thought he shouldn't have or because she judged him for it, but because he'd said he'd killed Shane for _them_ , for the group, and she was certain that wasn't wholly the truth.

She didn't think Rick killed Shane for the good of the group. And she'd stood there, listening to him yell, listening to him scream at them that they could go and she knew she had to. Even if it meant dying out there, even if it meant she was alone, even if it meant learning to take care of herself – with weapons and all – she just had to go.

Her whole life, she'd been told how to feel, what to do, that her voice didn't matter, that her feelings and her opinions didn't matter. And she was DONE.

This wasn't about Sophia. She didn't really blame Rick for that; she never had, she'd just been so angry in the beginning, but she'd never truly blamed him. And she'd thanked him for searching for her daughter, countless times. Rick had brushed it off each time, but she knew he had appreciated the gratitude, it reaffirmed that he was doing well, that he was doing his best. This wasn't about Sophia.

This was about trust. It was about believing that the person who led you had your best interest in mind. And Rick didn't, not anymore. Something had changed him, had made him colder, crueler, more in tune with this new world perhaps, but not a man she trusted anymore.

In the moments of silence that followed, her gaze had flickered to T-Dog who stood on watch and looked uneasy after Rick's speech; then to Maggie and Glenn, Beth and Hershel who all looked stunned ; to Lori who looked afraid and Carl who was still sobbing into his mother's shoulder; and then to Daryl. He'd looked… well she wasn't sure… but he was silent, brooding maybe, his eyes shaded and his lips drawn into an unreadable thin line on his face.

She had stood there, her eyes on Daryl and then she turned her attention to Rick again. He was still radiating anger from his very pores and he'd spun, turned his back to them all and that's when she'd said it.

"I'm leaving."

Rick had spun again to face her, his eyes seething. "What?" His voice had been low, incredulous.

She'd almost taken it back, her resolve wavering, but she took a deep breath and found her voice. "I'm… I'm sorry Rick. But I can't…. I can't stay here… not… not with you… with you like this. You're a good man, and a good leader, and I'm grateful for all you've done for me, but I can't follow you anymore." She stammered the first few sentences but the last words were strong, decisive.

Rick had snorted. That was his response. A snort of derision, bordering on laughter and then his eyes had narrowed. "Well, gee, Carol… good fucking luck out there on your own then. And don't think I'm giving you a weapon, you'd probably just shoot yourself anyway and then we'd be out another gun and another bullet. You want to die… fine… get the fuck out of here. It's not like we've ever _needed_ you."

She hadn't known what she'd expected. For Rick to beg her to stay? Did she want to stay? She knew without really asking herself that she didn't. She didn't trust him. She'd trusted him before, but he wasn't that Rick anymore. This Rick was unpredictable and angry and self-righteous and she could NOT trust him.

"I don't want your guns. I'll figure it out on my own," she'd said, her voice calm and full of a strength she hadn't even realized she possessed. And she'd turned, grabbing her oversized purse, the only thing she'd been able to salvage from the farm, and she'd moved to leave.

"Wait."

Her breath had caught in her throat at his deep, throaty voice. She'd thought maybe someone would say something… Lori maybe, they had been something like friends… but she never imagined that he would say something.

"I'm comin'," he'd said, his voice begrudging but determined and he'd gotten up from the side of the fire, grabbed his bag and moved towards her.

Rick had elicited an angry growl of frustration and he'd shot daggers at her before looking at Daryl. He'd opened his mouth to speak but whatever he saw in Daryl's eyes stopped him.

Daryl had breezed past Rick and over to her. When her eyes met his, he'd averted his eyes quickly and mumbled something that sounded like, "hell, ya ain't goin' alone", but she couldn't be sure.

And then he'd stepped away from her and into the woods and she'd followed. They'd taken the bike and driven a few miles before she started to shiver uncontrollably from the chilly night air. He hadn't said anything about it but he'd stopped as soon as they came across some abandoned vehicles and found a truck. He'd barely acknowledged her and she'd stayed silent as he loaded the bike into the bed of the truck and then spared a glance at her and nodded for her to get in.

They'd been driving in silence ever since… his focus only on the road ahead of them, on some plan or idea that she wasn't yet privy to… her staring out the window wondering at the craziness of it all. He had left with her. He had left. With her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daryl's POV.... because who doesn't love them a bit of Daryl?

Chapter 2

"I'm leaving."

And suddenly, with those words, Daryl wasn't sitting in the middle of fucking nowhere around a dim campfire with a bunch of nitwits and assholes that he only liked about 70% of the time. He wasn't thirty-seven anymore, living – no, surviving… no, thriving – in a zombie apocalypse. He was transported back in time to when he was twenty-two, standing in the middle of the shithole living room where he grew up.

Standing there, the hardwood floor cold on his bare feet, and he was looking at his mirror image standing in the doorway.

" _I'm leaving," she said, tucking a stray piece of her brown shoulder length hair behind her ear. She sighed, made an apologetic face._

_She was sorry to throw this at him, sorry to just do this without warning. She turned her head to look outside, like she'd heard something, but then turned back to meet his eyes._

" _Are you comin' with me?" Her eyes had been earnest on his and she'd smiled; the sad little half-smile that she'd been throwing at him their whole lives._

" _Ya can't jus' do this," he said, shaking his head._

_He saw her heart break in her face at his words, her shoulders sagged and she tightened her lips, dimming that sad smile he loved so much._

" _I can. You can. We can. Together. I don't have to go alone."_

_He shook his head. "I ain't leavin' Merle."_

_The smile was gone now, replaced by a frown. "Merle left us a long time ago. He's jus' like **him** now, a carbon copy…" She trailed off, glanced outside again, a glimmer of fear crossing her face, and then frowned at him. "I can't wait any longer…"_

" _Wait," he said and she smiled, thinking maybe he'd changed his mind. "Please…," he started to say and her face fell._

_She shook her head. Her bag hung over her shoulder and she took a few steps toward him, put a hand to the back of his head and leaned her forehead against his. They were the same height, the same build… the same person, just in two different forms._

" _I love you brother… but there's nothin' here for me."_

" _I'm here," he whispered, his eyes shutting tightly before opening and meeting her calm gaze – the eyes that were his eyes and the eyes that were her eyes, no difference between them at all._

_She smiled; her sad smile sadder than he'd ever seen it. "Only because ya choose to be," she said softly, and then her hand dropped from the back of his head and his forehead was vacant again, cool without her touch and she fled the room, the house, the life she was leaving behind, without another word, leaving Daryl Dixon gaping in her wake._

Daryl had only loved one person in his whole life. His mother had died when he was just days old, leaving him with an angry drunkard of a father, and a meddlesome, troublemaking pre-teen brother. There weren't a lot of people left to love in the family that Daryl grew up in. He hadn't had a lot of friends – he was a kid from the wrong side of the tracks and not someone that anyone really wanted to associate themselves with. He was lucky if he bathed twice a week growing up, and his social skills were limited to what his father and Merle demonstrated in their lack of affection for anyone, him especially.

So he loved the only person he had left, the only person who loved him all the same – his sister, Karla. They were twins, as closely identical as fraternal twins could get. She was the only person in his whole life who had understood him, who had truly cared about him.

As unacceptable as he was to the other kids at school growing up, that's how much everyone – kids, animals, teachers, most everyone – loved Karla. She was full of spirit, full of life, full of love. Daryl was envious of the other kids growing up, spiteful; he knew they hated him and he returned the sentiment. Karla wasn't like that. Karla was kind, tough, no-nonsense, but sweet, and who could hate that? Only one person actually. The only person who hated her spirit, who wanted to dim her love of life, was their father.

Karla was the only person who Daryl could ever say he had loved… in his whole life. The only person who he had let in, who he had truly depended on, who he had truly loved. And he had let her leave, let her go off on her own without him.

"I don't want your guns. I'll figure it out on my own," Carol's voice brought him back to reality, back to the moment. She stood there, her body lit with a fire she'd never shown any of them before… except maybe him… it was the same strength, the same fire that had been there when she'd told him to "Go ahead" at his campsite back at the farm, when she'd taken his anger, his rage, his hurtful words and internalized them, letting him unleash on her regardless of the consequences. There'd been a glimmer of strength in Carol then, but this was full-throttle strength now.

Carol was moving to leave, her oversized purse slung over her shoulder in the same pose that he'd seen his sister use fifteen years ago; and the word just left his mouth, leaping out into the silence completely unbidden, "Wait."

All eyes were on him and he wondered briefly what the hell he was thinking, what the hell he was doing. Was he actually doing this? Her problems weren't his problems, they didn't have to be. He had no issue with Rick or the way the man had chosen to handle things… or did he? Because suddenly Daryl was rising from his seat beside the fire and saying, "I'm comin'."

As he passed Rick, he knew the cop was going to say something, but Daryl's face was determined, shaded, and completely no-nonsense. Whether this was a good decision or not, it was the decision he'd made and nothing Rick said at this point was going to change that.

Carol was stark still by the time he reached her, her face pale, and her eyes confused. He met her eyes briefly before averting his gaze… he had no idea what he was doing or why.

"Hell, ya ain't goin' alone," he mumbled under his breath as he moved past her. It was what he should have said that day fifteen years ago, they were the words that would have saved a lot of heartache and a lot of pain, the words that might have changed it all.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Carol's POV... with a bit of backstory that I'm making up as I go. :) Hope you like! Thank you for the kudos!

Chapter 3

"Where are we going?," she asked tentatively. He hadn't spoken to her all night and into the morning… he just drove and she consumed herself with her thoughts, her questions, staring listlessly out the window and feeling like she was sitting on eggshells.

Sitting on eggshells next to Daryl Dixon was almost worse than being married to Ed. At least with Ed, she knew what to expect. It took years to learn it all, but she learned the intricacies of dealing with Ed… what to do to appease him, what made him mad, what settled him down, how to avoid getting hit. She had no idea what to expect from Daryl. He ran hot, seeming to care about her one minute, and then he ran cold, telling her in no uncertain terms to leave him alone – _ain't you a peach_ – and try as she wanted to, she just couldn't get a read on him.

He said nothing in response to her question. The silence was killing her. She was normally fine with all kinds of silences. She'd been silent most of her life. First with her family growing up… in the Rooke family, children were meant to be seen and not heard. Which probably bred her well enough for a life with Ed. The Peletier family… she shuddered at the thought of her wedding day; the day she became chained to Ed.

" _I don't want to marry him." Her stepmother had been pinning up her hair, the precursor to putting on the veil. She felt the prick of a pin pushed too hard as it grazed her scalp roughly._

_The silence around her in the bedroom was heavy, impregnable. She could feel her stepmother's disdain weighing around her and she winced as another pin was inserted a little too hard and it tore into her scalp. Her soon to be mother-in-law was visible in the mirrored closet doors, sitting awkwardly on the couch listening in as Carol's stepmother finished with the last of the pins. Mrs. Peletier's mouth was pursed and wrinkly with scorn – the quintessential prune face._

_Her stepmother had smiled, her reflection distorted in the mirrored closet doors giving her a ghoul like appearance and she'd simply said, "Nobody cares, sweetheart. You'll marry him because your father and I want you to… because we've paid money for this wedding. And because no one else will ever want you. If you bollocks this, I'll see to that, you can be certain."_

Carol had been seventeen the day she married Ed. The day her father gripped her arm forcefully as they made their way down the aisle toward nineteen-year-old Ed Peletier, a man-child she'd only met twice before that day.

The silence in the truck was just as impregnable now as it had been on Carol's wedding day, standing in that room getting her hair pinned. Her stomach churned with the same anxiety she'd felt then. Except instead of being seventeen and alone in a room with Mrs. Peletier and the woman who had married her father when she was two, the only mothers Carol had ever known; she was forty-one and alone in a truck with this insufferably silent and guarded man, this man who had saved her life in more ways than even she yet realized.

"If this is some kind of rousing game of 'let's ignore Carol', I have to say it isn't fun for me," she murmured.

She heard him snort in response but his eyes stayed focused on the road ahead.

"Do you want me to drive for a bit?," she asked warily, feeling frustrated at the lack of communication. Only silence greeted her question.

She sighed softly and turned her head to look out the window when suddenly she was jerked forward as he slammed on the brakes. The tires squealed in protest as the truck slid into an abrupt stop.

She looked at him in shock; he had swiveled in his seat, drawing one leg up slightly on the bench seat, and was facing her now. His eyes were narrowed at her and his lips were pursed together angrily.

"What was that for?," she asked, her eyes wide.

"You… are… drivin'… me… fuckin… nuts," he said slowly, deliberately, putting emphasis on each word that he spoke.

She exhaled through her nose slightly and raised her eyebrows. She opened her mouth, shut it, and then opened it again and bleakly said, "I'm… sorry."

He groaned, shook his head and then tilted it back so that he was looking up at the roof of the truck cab, as if he was trying to stare straight through it and up into the sky.

"Yer sorry… yer sor-ry," he repeated, his tone full of exasperation. "Fuckin Christ. I ain't lookin for ya to be sorry."

Carol furrowed her brow and bit her lip. She paused a beat as she tried to figure out what the hell was going on. She was trying to figure out what she could possibly say that wouldn't just infuriate him further. "Then what are you looking for?"

Daryl snorted, laughed and looked at her before letting his head drop with a smack as his forehead connected with the palm of his hand.

"Can you just say whatever the hell it is you're thinking right now, because I don't get it, and I have no idea what you _want_ from me," Carol said irritably after a few moments of silence.

He looked up at her with her outburst, his eyes meeting hers for the first time. She felt a shiver run up her spine at his gaze.

"That's what I want from ya," he said placidly, "I want ya to show some fuckin life. Yer all wishy washy and fuckin wobbly bout shit. Ya can't be that way anymore. Ya can't be balls-to-the-wall Carol one minute and wishy-washy-does-whatever-ya-want Carol the next. No more starin' out the window, no more sighin' at me. Ya got somethin' to say – fuckin speak."

"Balls to the wall?," she questioned.

"Balls-to-the-wall," he repeated. "The woman that said she's leavin' to Rick's face… that's balls to the wall. Ya gotta be balls-to-the-wall. Ya wanna stay alive, ya wanna not get my ass killed… you be balls to the wall."

"What else?," she said, straightening up in the seat.

He tilted his head and looked at her with a you-tell-me expression on his face.

She nodded, "okay, okay… I need to have a weapon, or several weapons… I didn't leave Rick and them to expect someone else to take care of me, to pull my weight for me." She paused, gathered her strength. "I didn't ask you to come, Daryl. I wasn't looking for a babysitter."

"Ya fuckin need one… leavin' like tha'… git yerself fuckin killed on yer own out 'ere," Daryl snapped angrily before taking a breath. He looked out the window for a second and then back at her before speaking, his voice calmer now. "I ain't yer sitter… and I ain't gonn' be. But ya cain't pull yer weight if ya don't know the fuck how. I'll show ya what ya need to know, a'right?"

She nodded, biting the side of her lip. Her mind was racing and she glanced down at the seat before looking up and opening her mouth to speak.

"Why did you leave with me?" She'd been thinking the question, but she hadn't meant to say it. She'd opened her mouth to thank him, but somehow the question had just popped out.

His eyes met hers briefly before he looked away, turning away from her to sit forward in his seat again. He stepped on the brake and put the truck back into drive. "Ain't had nothin' better to do." His words were soft and they reminded her of the time she'd asked him why he searched for Sophia.

The truck jerked forward as they started moving again and Carol asked one last question before turning in her seat to face forward. "So where are we going?"

He kept his eyes focused on the road. "Home… Dixon home, anyway. Got some shit to git."


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 4 finally. Sorry it's been taking me so long to post these. I have 20 something chapters posted on the other site, and I've been too busy to transfer them. I'm getting to it, I promise. Sorry for the delay! Thank you for reading!!!!

Chapter 4

Daryl hadn't meant to snap. He supposed he could have said a lot worse, but he hadn't even meant to say what he had. He'd meant every word of it – he kept quiet most of the time so that he only ever said stuff that he actually meant – but that hadn't been the way he'd wanted to say it. She did need to toughen up, but he didn't want to put it out there the way he had.

At any rate, she was quiet the rest of the trip, but at least she'd stopped those pathetic, mewling sighs she'd been doing before.

The quiet was good. He was comfortable with the silence and it gave him time to wrap his head around where he was going.

The Dixon Family Home.

It had been ten years since he'd been there. He could still remember his last moments in that house.

" _Ya ain't leavin' me, boy… ya ain't fuckin leavin' me." He could hear his father's surly, scratchy drawl from somewhere in the house as Daryl packed his bags._

_He heard his father swear an obscenity and then heard the bang of something being thrown against a wall. This was followed by loud footsteps down the hall. Daryl was shoving his clothes into bags straight from the closet and he picked up the pace. He dropped what he was doing as the footsteps reached the doorway and Daryl spun to face his father's large looming body in the doorframe._

" _Ain't a boy no more, pop." It was true – he was twenty-seven… today was his twenty-seventh birthday… five years almost to the day since the last time he'd seen his sister._

_His father lumbered in to the tiny room, his eyes narrowed, his lips pulled back in a sneer. "Yer a fuckin loser is what ya is…," he snarled and reared back a fist._

_The old man was drunk and Daryl stepped back to avoid the hit, watching his father stumble when he missed his target. The old man righted himself and stepped up close in Daryl's face so that the stench of bourbon and beer filled his nostrils._

" _Ya ain't gonna find 'er… I know that's what yer fixin' to do. Well, she's dead. Ya know it, I know it. Yer candy-ass brother knows it. Yer jus' too stupid to accept it."_

_Daryl stood his ground, his eyes boring holes into his father's, and he refused to back down._

_His father's sneer changed to a malicious grin suddenly and a chill went down Daryl's spine. He'd been so focused on staring his father down; he didn't notice that his father's hands weren't hanging down at the old man's side anymore._

_He felt the pierce of something sharp in his side. His father's eyes had never left Daryl's and when Daryl looked away first, looking down at the pain he suddenly felt, the fire in his chest… he saw his father's hand release the blade that was buried deep in Daryl's upper torso. His father had angled the blade up as he'd stuck it in, slid it right between Daryl's rib cage, and Daryl felt the air rush out of him as he realized his lung must have been punctured._

_He rasped, seeing the blade handle… knowing which blade it was. His father's hunting blade, the one with the curved end, serrated on one side, gut hook on the other… he remembered the words Merle said when the old man brought it home – "that'll leave more damage comin' out than goin' in."_

_His eyes went to his father's face and the old man was grinning. The old man grabbed Daryl by the collar and pulled him forward so they were nose to nose._

" _Try and leave me now, boy… fuckin jus' try and leave me now."_

_As the room started to dim around Daryl, everything fading to black like the end of a movie, his father's grinning face still inches from his own, all he could think about was Karla… the last thought he had before passing out was that, this… this was the reason Karla snuck out when it was just the two of them home and left the way she had._

Daryl didn't remember any more after that. From what he'd been told, Merle had come home some time later to find their old man hunched over Daryl's body on the floor, carving into him. The worst of his scars were from the wounds the old man had done to him that day. Merle had pulled the old man off; checked for a pulse and gotten Daryl to the only person he could think of at the time – his meth dealer.

Normal people – or at least what Daryl had always considered normal – take their stabbed and dying family members to a hospital. Not Merle though. Merle took him to a hopped up meth dealer, carried Daryl's lifeless and limp body two blocks down the road to the dealer's house, screaming and hollering for the dealer to do something.

Merle had spouted off that the hospital wasn't an option. Hospitals meant trouble. _"If there's docs, there's gonn' be cops."_ Someone would have to be held accountable for stabbing Daryl, for carving into him. Even the jackass police in their rundown town cared about a "white trash redneck" if he ended up in the hospital. Outside of the hospital was a whole different story – cops didn't give a shit what happened. Merle wasn't going to get the police involved, wasn't going to get their old man in trouble.

" _He's loony tunes, Daryl… ya cain't fault 'im for it," Merle said, looking down at Daryl lying small and shrunken in the meth dealer's bed._

" _The hell I cain't," Daryl croaked, wheezed, feeling pain as his ruined lung contracted with each breath he took._

In the end, Daryl just healed himself up and got the hell out of the shithole town he grew up in. He never went back to the house, had no intention of ever going back for the rest of his life.

Until now.

He angled the truck down the one lane dirt road that led to the house and prepared himself for what was to come.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Carol could see the tension in his shoulders as they pulled to a stop in front of an unassuming bungalow in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by woods. If she'd been asked to guess where Daryl had grown up, this is what she would have thought. The house was small but surrounded by trees and land. Daryl was as wide open spaces as a person could get. The place was a bit ramshackled, many of the wood shingles that sided the house were cockeyed, and weeds were overgrown all around the house.

He cut the engine but didn't move to get out. His head was down and he was staring at his lap, perhaps steeling himself for whatever came next.

"How can I help?" It was the only thing she could think of to say. She wanted to help. She had no idea why they'd come there, and she assumed from the look of the place that it might be abandoned. Nonetheless, she wanted to help.

He looked up, gave a wary glance at the house and then at her.

"I ain't goin' in the house." He averted his eyes from hers as he said it, staring at some part of the dashboard beside her.

"Are your parents…," she started to say but his eyes swiveled again to rest on hers and something in them told her to stop. _Perhaps parents are a forbidden topic for Daryl Dixon._

"I ain't goin' in the house," he repeated. "There's a shed round that side, I'm-a gonna go and git wha' I need and come back 'ere. Ya stay in the truck."

"I can help," she said softly.

He shook his head, his gaze hard on hers. "No. Ya cain't. Jus' stay 'ere for me, would ya."

She sighed but nodded her assent.

He took a deep breath, holding it a moment before exhaling and then he was opening the door and slipping outside.

She waited… sitting quietly in the truck. Minutes ticked by… tick, tick, tick. She glanced at the clock on the dash of the truck, knowing the time was wrong of course but it could at least tell her how long he'd been gone. Ten minutes had gone by. What if he had gotten in trouble?

Daryl had taken his crossbow with him, but he'd left his gun sitting on the seat at her side. She picked it up, feeling the cool steel in her hands and looking at the gun. Contrary to what she'd led everyone to believe, she wasn't a stranger to guns.

She didn't like them anymore, but she had been a good shot growing up. Carol's father had been a hunter, not an especially skilled one, but he'd been known to bring home a buck or two during the season.

She'd been two when her father met Jolene, the woman who would become her stepmother. Carol had taken to her immediately and Jolene had seemed to be the mother she needed. Carol hardly remembered that version of Jolene anymore. The more menacing version of Jolene, the dangerous and manipulative Jolene, was the only one that Carol remembered at this point. Shortly after Carol's seventh birthday, her stepmother had lost a baby. It was the first of several that Jolene lost and the woman had turned bitter, cold, withdrawn. She became convinced that the loss of her babies was somehow her stepdaughter's fault.

Jolene was generally silent about her accusations, about her hate and loathing for Carol, for the child she tolerated but didn't want, for the child she was forced to have while being denied the ones she wanted.

Carol knew… she was seven, but she wasn't stupid. She tried to stay silent, tried to be whatever Jolene needed. She made herself small and busy, working harder each day to make her stepmother happy. Her father was mostly oblivious to it. He hadn't been a very involved father from the get go, and even though he loved Carol, he'd never really known how to handle a child. He wasn't one for idle but excited chatter and giggling, for dolls and active imaginations, for tears and whining, or any of the other stuff that generally came along with a young girl.

So Carol worked hard at being good. She knew she had nothing to do with Jolene's miscarriages, her stillborns, and she convinced herself that with enough hard work, enough dedication, she could show Jolene how worthy she was of the woman's love.

One day though, when Carol was nine and while her father had been out hunting, Carol had brought Jolene some tea she'd made for her and it had burned Jolene's mouth.

" _What's wrong with you? You can't do anything right!"_ The harsh words had stayed with Carol her whole life, a reminder in her head that something must be wrong with her, but that wasn't all that had stayed.

Jolene had grabbed a broom and hit Carol with the handle – once across the side of the head, and then, when Carol had crumpled to the floor in horror and pain, she'd hit her again, right across the face, jamming the butt of the broom handle into her so hard that Carol's eyebrow had split, blood streaming down her face from the wound. It was the first time that Jolene hit her… not the last, but definitely the one that she remembered the best.

She carried a scar from that day, a small one… hardly noticeable unless you looked for it, but it was always the first thing Carol saw when she looked in the mirror. The tiny crescent moon that sat just below her eyebrow, the translucent tiny mark where the skin was taut and marred against her brow bone.

Her father had come home to find her hiding out in the tall grass beside the house, a rag to her face to staunch the bleeding – she'd learn over time that face and head wounds always bled like a bitch. He'd stopped leaving her home then, when he went on his hunting trips. It didn't stop Jolene from ridiculing Carol, from berating her daily, and it didn't do much to stop the beatings beside give Carol more time to heal in between each of Jolene's "fits". But at least from that day forward, until her stepmother had packed her off to the Peletier family, off to Ed and all the pain he eventually brought, Carol was her father's daughter; staying silent, hunting in the woods with him, shooting a rifle usually, but he'd taught her how to use the handgun he'd kept for safety's sake.

She hadn't held a gun since before Sophia was born… while she was pregnant actually. She felt anxiety build in her chest as she even thought it, as the memory of that moment surged within her. She felt the crushing weight of a panic attack, something she hadn't had for years.

All these years later and she still couldn't stand the sight of a gun. She still couldn't bear the weight of it in her hands. When the others had wanted to show her how to shoot, had wanted her to hold the weapon… she just hadn't been able to bear it.

She moved to put Daryl's gun back on the seat but a movement caught her eye. The screen door to the house was ajar now, by wind or by something else she didn't know. She watched it drift open on its hinges and then bang shut.

She bit her lip, glanced around and still didn't see Daryl. Twenty minutes had gone by… that was too long.

She eased the passenger side door open quietly, swallowed her anxiety and hesitantly picked up the gun again before she slid out of the vehicle.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Daryl hated that he was back here. And he hated that he could be back here and the place looked like he'd never left. Same ridiculous weeds dotting what barely even passed for a lawn… it was more mulch and burnt grass than anything else. Same cockeyed look to the place, shingles nailed on half-ass and falling off in such a way that it looked the whole shamble-y mess might come crashing down at any moment.

Ten years he'd been rid of this place. Ten years since he'd seen or heard of his old man.

He'd been rid of Merle for awhile too after he'd healed up and left. But he never could get rid of Merle for long. They were blood, kin, and even all the shit they'd been through together, put each other through together – Merle would still be the only brother Daryl had ever had.

_Merle ain't dead._ The thought was unbidden, springing into his mind. _Stop thinkin' like his ass could die. Ya know better-'an that._

As Daryl moved around the side of the house, toward where the shed was located, he wondered absently if Merle had come back around here… after Atlanta, after they'd gotten separated.

Merle had been done with the old man too, by the time that he'd caught up with Daryl about five years ago.

" _What are ya doin here, Merle?," Daryl said from behind the screen door to the tiny apartment he lived in._

_Merle shrugged, gave a what'd-ya-expect kind of look at Daryl. "Fuckin' bastard threw me out."_

Daryl had laughed. It was ironic.

Karla had been itching to leave when she'd left, just twenty-two and running off with nothing but hopes and dreams into the great unknown… not nearly so afraid of the world than she was full of fear for what daddy-dearest might do if she stayed.

Then, of course, the old man had nearly killed Daryl trying to keep him from leaving. Probably would have killed him if not for Merle's interference.

And then the old man just up and throws poor Merle out.

He wouldn't have said it to Merle, but he'd wondered if maybe it was because the two of them were too alike. Merle was the closest to their old man. Of course, Merle was the firstborn son, the eldest of them by years, and he'd taken on whatever responsibilities their old man had laid his way.

" _Yer in charge, Merle-y. Keep them brats in line."_ When the old man was going off on benders, it was always Merle who was the iron fist that ruled the roost. It was Merle the old man sent to do his dirty work – to give an ass-whooping when the old man felt it was deserved, whether or not it truly was being completely irrelevant. Merle had probably been more of a father than a brother when Daryl was growing up – busting ass and taking names, making sure the only anarchy in the family was Merle's own.

Merle was a stubborn, obnoxious, know-it-all hardass; and he'd spent most of Daryl's life alternately terrorizing and teaching, kicking Daryl's ass for any reason wanted let alone given. But no matter what, Daryl had always known he could count on his brother. Just like he could count on Karla… at least until she'd left.

He knew without even wondering that Karla wouldn't have come back here… even if she had survived long enough to see the apocalypse. Daryl had looked, but he'd never found her. For all he knew, she'd died months after leaving. Hell, for all he knew, the old man found her and killed her. She'd been his sister, his friend, his ally… and he had failed her. He knew it in his heart – he had failed her. Tears stung the back of his eyes as the thoughts sprang unwanted into his mind.

He hated being at this place… he couldn't call it his home. It hadn't felt like home since he was young… just a kid, making sandwiches with Karla and Merle while the old man was on a bender. He had good memories here, but they were so buried down below all the piss poor memories it was hard to find them.

He reached the shed and checked the lock – broken. From the looks of it, it had been broken for years. The old man wouldn't have fixed it anyway… what would he care about the contents of Daryl and Karla's shed.

They'd been eight when Merle had brought it home… the crappy old shed wobbling on the back of Merle's old Chevy truck. Merle had only been driving for a few months and it was a miracle he hadn't tipped the whole thing out in the middle of the street, the way crazy stupid Merle took corners in that thing. He'd put it in the back and grinned at Karla and Daryl that now it was there's.

" _Yer own home away from fuckin home," Merle had said as he handed Daryl the lock and Karla the key._

It wasn't a big shed, but they were just kids and it was plenty big enough for them. That summer that they had spent almost every day in that shed… playing jacks and dominos and all sorts of games to pass the time. The old man left them alone as long as he couldn't find them, and he never went and looked in the shed.

Daryl could remember times when they'd been in the shed and the old man would be screaming for Karla, looking for her… hollering his ass off, and Karla would start to cry, to shake. Daryl had been too young to realize back then what she was afraid of… why she always looked so tired in the morning, because she spent half the night lying awake in fear that their father might come home.

He could remember hugging her close in the small confines of the shed when their father would call for her… telling her she was safe with him, he would take care of her.

She never would tell him what made her so afraid… even when they were older, she wouldn't cry as much but she would still tremble with fear when their father pulled into the driveway late at night. Eventually he figured it out, but they were older by that point – seventeen – and even though he'd made it his job to protect her once he knew, to put a stop to it; he'd known he had already been failing her for years not realizing sooner, not stopping it sooner.

He stepped inside the shed, ducking down and squeezing his much bigger body into the small space he used to fit so well in. He felt his chest constrict being here. His heart was in his throat and his mouth was suddenly dry. Being here… it was too much.

Karla was all around him in this place – not here but here all the same. He shouldn't have come back. He was supposed to keep her safe, and instead he had kept here there, kept her at the house longer than she should have been. He remembered the day when they were sixteen – the day they'd been hiding in the shed from the old man and Karla first talked about leaving.

" _Ya cain't leave," Daryl snapped. His eyes fierce and angry. He couldn't understand why she wanted to leave. He didn't love it there either, but it was their home, it was all they knew. And if they stayed out of trouble, out of the old man's way, it wasn't really that bad… and at least they had each other. "I need ya here, Kar. I can protect ya from whatever's got ya spooked."_

_Karla frowned, crawled forward a bit in the space and pressed her forehead against her Daryl's forehead so they could really see each other in the darkness. She smelled like bubble gum and her eyes shone with tears. "And ya do, Daryl," Karla whispered in the shed. "You protect me all the time."_

But it wasn't enough. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't be there all the time… he hadn't protected her all the time. It took him too long to learn that lesson, and really, he only learned it a few days before she'd left.

No. He refused to go there… to go back to that day. The day that made Karla leave. The day when losing her became an inevitability.

He rummaged in the darkness of the shed, pulling and pushing the odds and ends that had been left there over the years until he came across what he was looking for, the only reason he'd come. He tugged at it until it came loose from the tangled mess it was under, propelling him backward and almost onto his ass, half in and half out of the shed, but his prize still firmly in hand nonetheless.

Karla's crossbow didn't look much worse for wear despite sitting in the shed for more than a decade. It was a mirror image of his own, except daintier with a lesser weight and made for a woman.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

The screen door continued to bang open and shut as Carol stepped on to the porch. She grabbed the screen door mid-close and stepped in between to touch the door knob for the front door. It turned easily in her hand and the door opened silently.

She would have seen if Daryl had come this way, if he'd come back around the house and into the home through the front door. And she knew he had said that he wasn't going in the house. He wasn't a person who said something like that lightly… if he wasn't going to do something, you could bet that he surely wasn't going to do it. Just like if he said he would do something, you could bank that he'd be good to his word.

Nonetheless, she crossed the threshold into the home. She was in the living room to the home, or at least what would have been a living room at one time. The room was full of cobwebs and a layer of dust at least an inch thick. There were newspapers stacked in one corner halfway up the wall. There was a couch in the middle of the room, the fabric grayish from the dust that coated it. The couch faced a wall with a fireplace that had been bricked over. The stone mantle surrounding the fireplace was the only part of the room that looked new, that looked clean.

She stepped over to it. There were framed photographs lining the mantle, all of which were brownish and graying with age.

A picture of a little boy with a devilish grin standing in between two adults – a man and a woman. The woman was pregnant, largely so, one hand laced in the man's hand, and the other resting on the bump on her stomach. They were all smiling – the boy devilishly and the woman shyly. But it was the man's smile that held Carol's gaze. It was wide – a smile of pure joy as he held the hand of the woman he loved and posed for a family photo. Most family photos are forced – smiles that look brittle and fake, but this man's smile was genuinely happy, eyes shining, face crinkled with delight as he tore his focus from the camera to glance at the boy standing between him.

The next photo was of three little kids… the boy from the first photo, a bit older, and two babies that were nearing on toddlers. One wore corduroy overalls and a big smile and the other, with a screwed up angry baby face, wore a dress sewn of purple fabric – a boy and a girl.

Her eyes fixed on the boy baby in the overalls and she saw it… this was Daryl. That would make the older boy Merle and the girl…

Daryl has a sister?

They looked to be the same age… a twin sister? Carol wondered how she could not know that. She didn't know much about Daryl, as closemouthed as he was; but she couldn't imagine not having learned that he and Merle had a sister.

What happened to her?

She looked to the third picture on the mantle. She saw an older Daryl, not yet a teenager, standing next to the girl that looked so very much like him, their arms linked. Behind them stood the older man from the first picture and an older Merle with a split lip, black eye and another devilish grin. The old man's face was somber, drawn in a tight line, not at all like the smile she saw in the first photo of him, the woman, and a much younger Merle. Daryl and the girl had tight lipped smiles and Daryl had turned his head away from the camera so that he was looking at the girl.

She wondered where the woman was… from the first picture… the pregnant woman who must have been Daryl's mother.

She looked at the last picture on the mantle and saw just Daryl and the girl. They were a little older than teenagers now. They were posing for the camera, standing inches apart, Daryl's arm draped around her shoulders in a protective stance. The girl's smile was forced, she was pale, drawn, too thin in the face and body, and her eyes looked sad… Carol leaned forward focusing in on the girl's face.

_I know her…_

She was cut off mid thought by a creak in the floor behind her. She whirled around in shock, one arm flying up to her chest, the other gripping the gun in her hand and raising it up in front of her.

A large, older man stooped in the doorway between the living room and what might have been a kitchen. He was leaning against the doorframe, his face leathered and wrinkly. His face was screwed up and cloudy and he was eyeing her through narrowed lids. Even if she hadn't seen the pictures on the mantle, she still might have guessed who he was – Daryl's father. The resemblance was there… Daryl's father, the man in the photos… even now, his mouth a tight line on his face and the eyes sad and somber, bitter and cold.

"Waited ten years for 'im to git his ass back 'ere, and he ain't even gonn' come in…," the man said, his eyes piercing into her through narrowed slits. He scowled.

Carol held the gun steady in her hand, pointing it at him but not really aiming; she was completely unsure what the best course of action might be. Her attention was solely on this man and what was going on here and now, but something was nagging at her… deep in the back of her mind, a nagging thought about the girl in the photo.

"Mind if I sit?," the man said, moving into the room, his gait was lumbering and he winced as he stepped forward toward the dust-covered couch. He kept an eye on her the whole time. "Ya can keep tha' gun trained on me if ya need ta… ain't gonn' need it though."

"Well I don't know you, so I think I'll just keep it if it's all the same to you," Carol responded, her voice kind but straightforward, stepping back so that her back was to the wall next to the mantle. She kept the gun level with him and her finger poised over the trigger should she need it. She watched him lower himself carefully down onto the couch, hissing a bit as he finally sat. The couch groaned beneath him and a haze of dust sprayed up into the air as he settled down into the cushion.

The old man chuckled, squeezed his eyes closed, and put a hand to his chest. "It's all the same, lady, it's all the same at this point, ain't it?" The chuckling was quickly replaced by coughing, and he bent over his legs, leaning over in the seat toward the floor and made a hacking sound… the sound was loud and phlegmy and then he hacked again and spat a thick reddish liquid on the floor.

"What's wrong with you?," Carol said.

He sat back slowly and looked up at her. "I was born."

Carol wrinkled her brow in confusion. "What's your name?"

The man snorted. "He ain't told-ya? Fuckin figures… little bitch."

"Excuse me?," Carol said.

The man waved a hand in front of him. "Nah, nah… didn't mean you… meant him, tha' little bitch I raised up. Cain't even tell his woman bout 'is old man."

Carol felt her face grow hot as she flushed. "I'm not his woman."

The old man closed his eyes again a moment and elicited a wheezing sound as he breathed. Then he opened his eyes and croaked softly, "he like boys now?"

"No!," Carol said instantly, her voice just a tad raised, "I didn't mean… no, that's not what I meant… I mean, I'm not his woman… we're just fr… I mean, we're just… I'm his…," she stammered awkwardly.

"It's no bus'ness of his who ya are," Daryl's voice sounded from the entrance to the house, and Carol whipped her head around to look at him. She caught his eye and she could practically see the anger rising off him like a steam. He narrowed his eyes at her. "Told-ya to keep yer ass in the truck," he muttered angrily at her before stepping into the house and coming to stop on the other side of the mantle, his focus now on the man on the couch.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit of a backtrack. In the last chapter, Daryl walked in on Carol and his old man inside the house. And he was none too pleased. Before we find out what happens next inside the house, I wanted to broach what Daryl was thinking in the moments before.

Chapter 8

Daryl grabbed the arrows he could find inside the shed and took them and the crossbow with him as he made his way back to the truck. He was itching to get out of here… the place was creeping him out. He'd spent the last ten years of his life building up whatever shred of confidence his father hadn't cut out of him, and being here seemed to drain it all away in a matter of moments.

He wished he hadn't come, but when Carol had said she needed to have a weapon… well he'd known exactly what she needed.

There were a number of places that he knew of that sold bows, guns, knives, all kinds of weapons. And he could have driven to any one of those places. But newer didn't always mean better, and he'd rather her have a bow he trusted than a bow that was simply convenient to get.

Daryl knew Karla's crossbow nearly as well as his own. They'd learnt together on them, hunted together… the man who had made his crossbow was the same man who had made Karla's. Old man Charleson who used to live down the road and had taken pity on the two ragamuffins who passed by his house every day on the way to school. He'd been a good man, taught the two of them a few things about hunting, and built them both crossbows about a month before he'd died. They were sister bows, built from the same wood source, which he supposed gave a sense of camaraderie to the two weapons.

A sense of camaraderie he wasn't yet ready to admit he was feeling himself… with Carol.

He cared about the woman. He'd spent a lifetime building walls around himself; walls that he only let a few people beyond. Walls that he'd only fortified even further after Karla left. There wasn't room for caring about anyone beyond those he absolutely had to care about… and by the time he'd come upon the quarry and the group, the list was short – consisting of just himself and Merle. And Karla, although he'd stopped actively caring when he'd failed to find her.

He had searched for his sister. He was defensive about that in his head. When he'd left home, he had searched and searched. He checked all the places Karla had ever talked about going to, but he'd never found her. A piece of him had died at that point, when he had accepted that his sister was simply gone. It became easier to stop caring at that point.

So he had made himself strong under the guise that all that mattered was himself… and Merle, when his brother had come back around. And then the world shifted, the dead started walking again, and Merle and he were thrown into some ragtag mix of people Daryl never expected to like. A ragtag mix of people that included Carol.

And Carol… Carol had reached him. On a level he hadn't known needed to be reached. It happened long before Sophia had actually disappeared, in such an unassuming moment even before she'd smashed her dead husband's head in with a pickaxe.

_Daryl hung back, scowling behind Merle as Merle went ahead and introduced himself and his brother to all of the group. It was in the beginning, at the quarry, but before Jim, T-Dog, Jacqui, and Morales's family had come along to camp. Merle could be an ass, but he could be a charming ass when he wanted to be… and he was putting the moves on now. Putting the moves on these unsuspecting people who were all camped out together awaiting some kind of word from the authorities._

_Daryl wondered what the game was but said nothing at the time to his brother._

_He nodded hesitantly at the one who introduced himself as Shane, the leader of the pack apparently. He looked cocky, annoyingly so, and his smile was more of a sneer. If anyone would peg Merle, it would be this one, Daryl was sure. Daryl averted his gaze and looked at the others – a stick skinny woman with long brown hair, hovering next to Shane… his woman perhaps. A little boy next to her who must have been hers, but didn't look a thing like Shane._

_The rest – an older man with a floppy fisherman's hat, a pair of blonds that looked like sisters, a chinaman with a baseball cap pulled low on his head, and some others – were all hovering in the background, watching carefully but not willing to get involved yet – unsure about these strange men who arrived by way of a truck and a motorcycle. Daryl held the crossbow, some rabbits slung over his back and he offered to gut them to share for supper with everyone._

" _I'll take them," she had said, her voice light and soft as she stepped over. Her eyes flickered to his for a moment and then shifted away quickly. He hadn't noticed her before. She had moved away from a little girl that had stood next to her… a tiny bit of a girl who must have been her daughter – blond, big blue eyes, with a wary smile._

_The woman's hair was shorn close to her head, graying and she moved with grace as she approached. There was an uncertainty to her movement though, as she glanced back into the area where the others were, as if she might be looking for someone._

" _I can gut them, make a stew…," her voice was soft as she spoke, he wondered if anyone else was even listening._

_He let her take the proffered rabbits and her eyes met his again. He noticed she had the remnants of a shiner around one eye, healing but still a slight puce tinge to it._

" _I'm Carol," she said, and offered him a slight smile, her eyes shining with a kindness that he didn't see in the others._

_He nodded, "Daryl," his voice was gruff, and his brother's eyes had landed on him for a moment before turning back to whomever he'd been talking to at the time._

He hadn't met Ed until later that same day. But he'd instantly recognized the source of that bruise he'd noticed around Carol's eye.

He stayed clear of her for a long time after they'd met, unsure really what it was that drew him toward her, that made him slowly start to care what happened to her. That made his walls start to feel confining and not securing, start to feel claustrophobic instead of safe.

Daryl reached the truck and felt a flash of anger when he saw she wasn't inside. _Wha'. The. Fuck._

He'd had one request and she hadn't followed it. His head turned and he looked at the porch of the house. Only one place she could have gone. And she'd better have had a good reason. He put Karla's – now Carol's – crossbow into the bed of the truck, and gripped his own a little firmer as he turned to face the house again. His stomach clenched with an anger and an anxiety he hadn't felt for years, and he made his way up the stairs onto the porch.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

"It's no bus'ness of his who ya are," Daryl's voice sounded from the entrance of the house, and Carol whipped her head around to look at him. She caught his eye and she could practically see the anger rising off him like a steam. He narrowed his eyes at her. "Told-ya to keep yer ass in the truck," he muttered angrily at her before stepping into the house and coming to stop on the other side of the mantle, his focus now on the man on the couch.

"N-ow is that anyway to talk to my guest?," the old man said sarcastically, his voice strained with effort and then he started to cough again.

Daryl exhaled loudly, shifted on his feet and scowled. He looked from Carol to his old man as he spoke… "Carol, this is my old man, Frank… Frank Dixon."

Carol shifted uncomfortably and nodded, her eyes meeting with Frank's and his gaze glinted devilishly before he averted his eyes back to Daryl.

She dropped the hand that had been keeping the gun on Frank, and let it rest at her side, the handle of the gun still in its grip.

"The fuck ya been, boy? Yer fuckin trespassin, I oughta call the fuckin cops," Frank sneered and then he started to laugh.

Carol put her empty hand to her mouth and bit back the tight smile she felt threatening the corner of her lips.

Daryl's father was… crotchety. She imagined he'd been cruel when Daryl was younger, cruel and angry and a drunk. It was etched across his face – the father's – and written across Daryl's contemptuous gaze. She thought about the scars that Daryl bore… the ones on his chest that he'd been quick to cover up when she'd walked in on him at Hershel's farm. She was sure there were others as well. She wondered if Frank had always been that way, this way… the man on the couch with the angry, gleaming eyes, the sarcastic tone, he hardly seemed the same man she'd seen with the smile in that first photograph on the mantle.

When had he changed?

She knew without knowing. The pregnant woman in the photograph… when he had lost her, Frank had become what he had become… this man, this sarcastic, cold, bitter man. She could see it in the smile that crossed his face now… he was like Ed.

"Oh yea, go 'head, call whoever ya fuckin like, pop. Ain't gonn' matter," Daryl jabbed back.

Frank's face contorted into a wide smile. "Ya 'member that time I tried to gut ya?," Frank said and Carol looked at him in horror. "Woulda done it too… how's them scars doin'? I wanted to play connect the fuckin dots with yer face but yer damn brother…"

"Shut the fuck up, old man," Daryl hissed. In a quick move, his hand was on Carol's suddenly and he had taken the gun from her. He raised his hand to point it at Frank's head.

Frank snorted. "Ya gonn' kill me now boy? Ain't got the balls."

Daryl growled and advanced moving forward like a cat stalking prey and shoved the gun closer.

Frank's smile got wider and he leaned forward on the couch – the springs groaning under the pressure – and pressed his forehead into the gun that Daryl was pointing.

Carol moved to Daryl's side, put her hand on his arm softly; breathlessly she said, "no Daryl, you don't want to do this…"

Daryl cast a glance at her with a glare that spoke volumes. It screamed get back, get away from me. She removed her hand from his arm like it burned her and backed up a step.

Daryl turned his fiery gaze back to his father who leaned harder into the barrel of the gun. "I got the balls, pop. Ya gave 'em to me… beat 'em in nice and bloody. Ya wanna meet yer maker?"

Frank kept his eyes on Daryl, let the smile fade for a moment. "Fuckin' do it, ya lil' sally girl. No better than yer fuckin' whore of a sister…"

Daryl snarled and raised the gun suddenly, smashing the butt of it into Frank's face. Frank didn't cry out, didn't raise a hand. He sank back into the couch a little and wheezed in a breath before smiling again. Beads of perspiration were forming on Frank's forehead. Carol saw the yellow in his eyes as they rolled a bit into his head and then came to rest again on her for a moment before back to Daryl.

"You don't talk about her… it's yer fault she left… ya fuckin destroyed 'er, you sick fuck. I know what ya did. I know 'xactly what ya done. I fuckin saw it," Daryl yelled, his voice thick with rage.

She heard him click the safety off the gun and she stepped forward, her hand coming down to rest on his arm again. He didn't acknowledge, she leaned forward and said, her voice shaking, "Don't do it Daryl. Don't do this. There's no peace in this… no peace down this road… trust me…"

_Carol was lying face down on the wood floor at the bottom of the stairs. She groaned, moved her head slowly and slid her cheek across the warm slick wetness that she was lying in. Blood, her blood._

_As what had happened came back to her, she started to sob, she rolled to her side, drew her knees up and curled into a ball on the floor, and she cried gut-wrenching sobs. Her head ached. How much blood had she lost? Had she passed out? How long was she out? She'd been at the top of the steps… and then she'd been at the bottom._

_Is the baby okay? She was only four months pregnant… her belly barely distended in a small bulge._

_She heard the creak of the staircase as someone descended. Then her stepmother stood above her, leaning over, peering down, shaking her head._

" _What a pity," Jolene said, shaking her head. "You really should start watching where you walk… one of these days you're going to have an accident that does more than break a few bones."_

_Carol was dizzy as she rolled over again, this time onto her back, staring up at Jolene's hard face._

" _You… you… pushed me," she whispered._

_Jolene smiled viciously. Then looked away from Carol, glancing around the room. "Whose to say how you fell? No one here but us hens." Her smile grew wider. Then she glanced away from Carol, down Carol's body… "You're bleeding, honey… I don't think this baby's gonna make it." Her face looked satisfied… as if a goal had been met._

_Groaning, Carol moved a hand down her body, feeling the area where her dress – Ed liked her in dresses – had lifted up slightly and she placed her cool fingers to her warm, sticky thigh, pulled away and saw blood on the fingertips._

_She heard a sound that sounded like pure unadulterated anguish, like the saddest sound anyone had ever heard, and then she realized it was coming from her. She rolled onto her side again, and sobbed, the low, anguished, guttural sound still pulsating from the back of her throat._

_She heard the tsk-tsk clucking sound Jolene made as she stepped around Carol, and moved out of the room into somewhere else in the house. "Suck it up, honey… Lord knows, I did," Jolene said casually as she disappeared from sight._

_Ed was away… traveling. He traveled a lot. When he left, Jolene always stayed at the house with Carol. Not because Carol wanted her to, but because Jolene and Mrs. Peletier were afraid Carol would leave before Ed got back._

_Carol wouldn't have left… she'd been told enough what would happen if she did. She wouldn't make it far, wouldn't make it on her own. They'd find her. Hunt her down. She wouldn't care if they killed her… she'd do it if she thought they'd kill her for it. But what they'd do would be worse than death. The three of them – Jolene, Mrs. Peletier, Ed… they could do worse than death, much worse._

_She sobbed on the floor, until finally she lay there in silence, her hair stained in blood that had leaked from her head. There was so much of it, she was lightheaded, but she knew it wasn't enough to die. It was never enough to die._

_She wished for death, but wishes were nothing. Wishes didn't help. Nothing helped._

_She pulled herself up off the floor, slowly, tentatively, feeling each wound, each bruise as she did it. One arm ached… it was broken, she thought. She wouldn't be surprised. It would heal… they always healed._

_She stood, lifted the skirt of her dress and inspected between her legs. There was blood drying on her thighs, she pulled down her panties slightly… red with blood. This was her first baby… dead in her womb, blood on her thighs._

_Carol moved like a robot down the hallway, into a room that Ed used for his den. She moved to the desk, rummaged through it. It took minutes for her to find the object of her desire. She pulled it out and turned it over in her hands, gazing at it._

_Ed's gun… a revolver. Her wet hands left bloodied fingerprints everywhere they touched. She shut the desk drawer and looked at the gun, feeling its weight in her hands._

" _What are you doing with that?" Jolene's voice was glib from the doorway to the den. She looked at Carol like one would look at a child. Carol wasn't a child anymore. Carol was twenty-eight years old. She'd been a wife for eleven years now. She'd been nearly a mother… for four months. Her gut wrenched and she looked up calmly at her stepmother._

_Jolene gave her a scolding look. "Put that down. You're not going to shoot yourself."_

_Carol lifted her arm, pointed the gun at Jolene. "I wasn't going to shoot myself… I was going to shoot you." Her voice was soft, sullen and serious._

_Jolene's lower lip dropped down slightly and her eyes widened. "No," she said petulantly, "no you're not…" Her words were drummed out by the gunshot. Carol was knocked back slightly as the gun bucked in her hand. It had been awhile since she'd gone hunting with her father… not since before she was married had she held a gun, had she discharged a weapon. She steadied herself, watched as red bloomed across her stepmother's blouse._

_Jolene frowned, looked down at her bosom at the hole made in the fabric of her blouse where the bullet had gone through, had plunged deep somewhere in her chest, blood now draining onto the fabric, spreading out across her chest. She looked up, meeting Carol's eyes… "What did you do…"_

_And then Jolene crumpled to the floor and Carol started to cry again, sobbing, dropping to her knees and heaving as she gasped for air, her stomach churning, her head pounding…_

"There's no peace down that road, no peace if you do it, Daryl… trust me," she repeated, her voice pleading, her hand tightening on Daryl's arm. Something in her voice must have reached him. The gun wavered slightly in his hand, and he looked at her… truly looked at her.

_Carol's father found her hours later… Carol and Jolene. Jolene dead on the floor, and Carol covered in her own blood curled up in a ball beside Ed's desk… sleeping in a little ball on the floor, her eyes red-rimmed, the contents of her stomach lying emptied beside her._

_He took the blame. He told the police that he had come in to see Jolene push Carol down the stairs. He said they'd had words, he had been enraged, went for the gun in Ed's desk… she followed, and he shot her in the doorway to the den. He'd tidied the scene so that it matched his story._

_Carol stood there, emotionless, her body wracked with defeat, and let him. The police questioned her and all she could do was nod and shake her head. She was destroyed. But he took the blame._

_Her father. The man who had taught her to shoot. He told her that it had to be this way. He had sworn to protect her. He should have done better before then, he'd said. It was better this way – if he took the blame._

_Of course, without him, she was lost. He was arrested… held without bail. Eventually he was convicted._

_She hadn't lost the baby that day. It was a miracle. The only miracle she'd ever witnessed. It was the only bright spot in the months that followed. Five months later, Sophia was born… and life moved on. She couldn't leave Ed… she'd thought about it, but there was Sophia, and Mrs. Peletier – she knew. Carol never knew how she knew, but she knew. She dangled it over Carol's head… her knowledge… what she knew Carol had done. And Carol couldn't leave… she could never leave._

"Daryl," she said softly, his eyes suddenly soft on hers – his father on the couch all but forgotten – and she felt the weight of her memories on her chest… the world started to go black and suddenly she was crashing down to the floor, Daryl's arms encircling her at the last moment before she hit her head.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No flashbacks in this chapter… and don't jump to any conclusions about what Daryl says to his father at the end there.

Chapter 10

In his haste to grab Carol as she passed out, Daryl dropped the gun and it skidded across the floor. Daryl wasn't one to panic, but suddenly he felt dread and terror as he held her in his arms, her body limp and unresponsive. He was crouched on the floor, one arm encircling her body so that she was suspended off the hard wood, one of his hands on her cheek.

The couch creaked and he glanced up as his father rose. His eyes darted to the gun lying on the floor… too far away from him to reach. Even if it had been closer, Daryl wasn't certain he would have dropped Carol to reach it. He met his father's eyes. His old man was scowling, and Daryl for the first time noticed the red tinge to his father's mouth, the mustard yellow to his eyes.

Frank averted his gaze and made a wheezing sound as he breathed. "Reckon since ya ain't gonn' shoot me, I'm-a go make a sandwich…"

Daryl watched Frank shuffle off, passing the gun still on the floor as he went around the couch and disappeared into the kitchen.

He looked down at Carol's pale face and patted her cheek. "Come on," he growled.

He felt her stir slightly in his arms and her eyes fluttered for a moment before she fixed her gaze on him.

"What… what happened?," she said softly. He saw the pink returning to her cheeks and felt the air rush out of him. He hadn't even known he was holding his breath. Carol tilted her head to the side to see the couch. "Where's Frank? Did you…"

"No," Daryl grunted, shook his head and continued, "ya shoulda let me shoot 'im." His voice was low, gruff.

Carol shook her head. "It won't help. If you do… it won't help." Her eyes looked forlorn, lost, and Daryl felt a pain in his chest just looking at her lying there, still in his arms.

She gave him a soft smile, lifting the corners of her mouth up only slightly.

Despite himself, he found himself smiling back, his eyes locked on hers.

A wheeze from the doorway tore Daryl's attention away and his father was standing there again, holding a sandwich in one hand, one bite missing, chewing as he watched. "Don't lemme in'errupt… jus' my house is all." Frank's words were soft but his tone was bitter.

"I think I'm okay now, Daryl… you can let me up," Carol said bringing his attention back to her. He pulled back, took his arms away from where they'd held her, and he felt the loss of it. He felt the loss of her warmth as he let her go. He stood first, offered her a hand and she took it, letting him assist her in standing up. She picked up the gun that had skidded to the floor, and he felt her soft gaze on him as he took it from her.

"The fuck's wrong with ya?," Daryl snarled, turning back to Frank standing in the doorway.

Frank chewed; let his eyes fall on Carol for a moment before eyeing his son critically. "Got meat in the fridge… yer welcome to it." His eyes shifted to Carol and he nodded before pivoting carefully in the doorway and moving away from them with a lumbering gait.

"Fuck," Daryl breathed angrily, feeling the tension coil in his body and he looked at Carol. She shrugged, lifted her chin towards the room that Frank had turned into, "go, I'll be right there."

He glanced back once before disappearing through the doorway, saw her standing at the mantle, her back to him, leaning in and peering at one of the frames. He wondered briefly what she was doing… if she was okay… why she had fainted… but he stepped into the kitchen anyway, leaving her alone in the living room.

Frank was sitting at an old poker table that he was clearly using for a kitchen table. It was rickety, and the chair he sat in was too small for Frank's large frame.

"The fuck ya doing, pop?," Daryl said softly, frowning.

Frank made a motioning movement with one hand, the one that wasn't holding the sandwich, and Daryl turned toward the counter. His father had laid out a loaf of bread, some kind of homemade mystery meat in a package, and a bottle of ketchup.

"All I got," Frank muttered through a mouthful.

"I'm not gonna eat yer food, pop," Daryl said as Carol stepped inside the kitchen.

"What is it?," Carol said, moving forward to the counter.

"Meat," Frank said, rolling his eyes.

Carol smiled at Daryl amusedly.

Daryl scowled. "Prob'ly squirrel… maybe pig if he still had any." He stepped over to the counter, leaned over and smelled the mystery package. He looked at Carol and shrugged. "Seems fine… go 'head if yer hungry."

"Least yer woman ain't too stuck up to accept a kindness," Frank mumbled over a mouthful and Daryl spun, shooting him a glare.

"Fuck off, old man. Ain't nothin' kind about ya… what kinda game are you playin' at here?," Daryl snapped.

"Daryl," Carol said with a warning in her tone. He huffed and looked at her, seeing those pleading eyes. He worked his jaw but didn't say anything.

Frank started to laugh. "Ya sure ya ain't 'is woman? Cause ya sure gots 'im whipped," Frank managed to choke out at Carol as he guffawed. The laugh turned to a cough and Frank hacked a few times, choking on whatever it was that was in his chest. His face turned red as he coughed, but paled right down once he stopped, sitting back and wheezing from the effort.

"He wants you to kill him," Carol said softly and Daryl looked at her. Her face was serious, her eyes worried.

Daryl turned to look at his father, tilted his head to one side and pursed his mouth. "Tha' what yer lookin' for?"

Frank narrowed his eyes, chewed on something in his mouth – the side of his cheek perhaps since the sandwich was gone – and said nothing.

Daryl shook his head slowly, ran a hand over the gun that he'd stuck in his pants. He looked down, then up at Carol before looking at Frank again.

"I should, ya know, should jus' fuckin kill ya for all ya done… to me, to Merle, to Karla," his voice broke on his sister's name, but his face stayed as emotionless as marble. "But I ain't. I ain't gonn' kill ya. That's too good for you." Daryl glanced at Carol who had fixed two sandwiches and was watching him curiously.

"You comin'?," Daryl asked her and she nodded. "Then let's go. We done here." Carol moved to the door, and Daryl followed. As he reached the doorway he was stopped by Frank's words.

"Will you tell her I'm sorry… for all of it… for what I done… will you tell 'er I'm sorry," Frank's voice was shaky and when Daryl glanced back at him, he could see the man's eyes welling up.

Daryl knew who the 'she' was… he knew what his father had done. Apologies would never be enough, could never be enough. He could have just nodded, that's what the old man needed – a bit of peace, something to cling to, an idea that redemption was possible. But Daryl couldn't do it.

He shook his head, his voice coming out cold and harsh as he spoke. "Karla's dead, pop… you can apologize to 'er, yerself. Reckon she ain't gonn' give a shit bout yer sorry-ass sorries."

Frank's face seemed to collapse in on itself and he started to blubber, tears squeezing out of his closed eyes. Frank put his head down on the table and he sobbed.

Carol was watching Daryl when he turned back to her, a question in her eyes, but she said nothing as he breezed past her. They headed for the door. He let Carol out first, let the screen door slam shut behind him and muttered, "let's get the fuck outta this place."


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Carol headed down the stairs of the home and came to a stop by the driver's side door to the truck and watched expectantly as Daryl stormed down the stairs in her wake, his face hardened and impassively cold.

He was muttering angrily to himself and nearly bumped into her as he went to the door, realizing at the last moment that she was there and in his way and he halted quickly, shooting her a glare.

"You've been driving the whole time... you need to rest," she said.

"I'll rest when I'm dead," he snapped in retort like it was a well-rehearsed line but the irony of that statement hit Carol like a hammer. Everything had been happening so fast since they'd left the group and she never really had the chance to consider the ramifications of the announcement by Rick that they were all infected. The dead don't rest in this world…

She shook her head and extended her hand palm up, indicating she wanted the keys. "Unless you want to be dead sooner rather than later, let me drive. You need to rest."

Daryl snarled at her and shook his head while moving to reach around to push her out of the way but she didn't step aside; instead she put a hand out and touched his chest.

They weren't in the habit of touching each other, not normally. He'd only really touched her a couple of times… when Sophia had come out of that barn and then when she'd passed out inside the house and he'd grabbed her, held her a moment too long after she came to. If she thought about it she couldn't recall Daryl ever touching or letting himself be touched by one of their old group unless there was some kind of confrontation involved in it. He'd let her kiss him on his head once, at Hershel's, but he hadn't been comfortable with it. She understood a little better now why he'd flinched, why he held himself off at a distance from everyone; coming face to face with Daryl's father had been somewhat enlightening.

He froze the moment her palm went flat on his chest. She could feel the hardness of the well-defined muscles hidden underneath his shirt and he was so still she could practically feel his heart beating, drumming itself against the walls of his chest beneath her hand.

"Please, Daryl... let me do this, let me drive for awhile. Please. I need you to trust me," her tone was beseeching, bordering on begging.

His gaze on her face seemed to soften, warming her skin, and one of his hands was suddenly snaking around her hand on his chest, pulling her hand back; his calloused fingers rough on her delicate skin. He stared into her eyes; his thumb moving, rubbing back and forth across her skin, to caress the back of her hand held in his.

She was holding her breath, caught in his gaze, surprised by the warmth of his flesh on hers and then he grunted, breaking the silence and slid something cool and hard into her hand before letting go, taking his hand away and dropping it empty to his side.

She let out her breath and looked down... he'd given her the keys.

Daryl moved around the back of the truck and got into the passenger side. Carol opened the driver's side door and slid inside. As the engine roared to life with the turn of the key, Carol said softly, "thank you…"

Daryl made no acknowledgement of her words, just sank down a bit on the seat and leaned his head back.

He hadn't asked where she was planning to go. She was sure he wanted to know but she was impressed that he hadn't asked. She had asked him to trust her, and he had. She pulled away from the house and down the dirt road that led them back to the highway and glanced over to see he was watching her.

She felt self-conscious under his gaze and she forced a tight smile and then said as way of an explanation, "There's somewhere I have to go."

"Wake me if ya need anythin'," he muttered and turned his head to face out the window and she could see in the reflection on the glass that he'd shut his eyes.

She turned onto the main road going in the direction they had been going before that had taken them to the Dixon home.

It was a few miles up the road before she felt safe enough to take one hand off the wheel and slide it into her oversized purse that still hung across her shoulders diagonally. Daryl was asleep now, a soft chuffling snore sounding through his open lips every few moments.

She fingered the frames that were there in her purse and pulled one out. She'd taken two of the pictures – the one of Frank, an older Merle, with Daryl and his sister as kids all posing together; and the one of just Daryl and his sister. She had thought of taking the one of Frank and Daryl's mother with Merle. The one where Daryl's mother must have been pregnant with Daryl and his sister, assuming Carol was right and they really were twins.

In the moments before she'd entered the kitchen, she'd stood in that room and looked around though. The only place that wasn't dirty and decrepit was that mantle, those photos. They were so clean the glass on the frames gleamed, and she knew that these were the only things Frank cared about. Carol hadn't wanted to leave there with nothing… she'd wanted something for Daryl, but she didn't want to leave Frank without the only thing he cared about at the same time. So she'd left the picture of the mother where it belonged… with the father.

She'd taken the family photo because it had all of them in it. Even if Daryl didn't want to remember his father, she was sure he wanted to remember Merle, and it seemed to her that he needed to remember the sister.

She'd taken the one of Daryl and his sister because she'd needed to look at it again. That was the photo she held in her hand now, looking intently at the girl standing next to Daryl.

_It was hot, too hot. Carol was crouched down in the garden pulling weeds. The back of her floral dress was wet and clung to her skin._

_She pulled at an exceptionally difficult weed and its roots gave way with force, rocking her back onto her heels, almost flat on her back but she stabilized herself at the last minute. She glanced over and saw Sophia, eight-years-old with long blonde hair that trailed down her back, standing at the edge of the yard talking to a woman on the other side of the fence. The woman was smiling looking down at Sophia and from behind it looked like Sophia was laughing._

_Carol stood, brushing her hands on her dress and moved over toward the edge of their property._

" _Hi," she said softly, interrupting the conversation between her daughter and the stranger._

" _Mom, this is our new neighbor! She has kids just like me!," Sophia exclaimed with a grin._

_Carol met the eyes of the pretty woman standing on the other side of the fence. She was younger than Carol by a few years. She had light brown hair and striking dark gray-blue eyes. She smiled and extended a hand across the fence._

" _Hi, your daughter was telling me all about you. We just moved in, me and my girls. I'm Karla." The woman's grin was friendly and Carol liked her instantly, responding automatically with a smile and a handshake._

" _I'm Carol… welcome to the neighborhood," she said softly._

The girl in the picture with Daryl was younger, her smile forced and unnatural, but the eyes were much what Carol remembered. The kind eyes of the younger woman that had smiled back at her across the fence that day, the kind eyes that Carol let see much more as the two women had developed a friendship, bonded by their little girls, a kinship, that was only divided by a fence and a man… Ed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, I just wanted to say thank you for reading. And for those of you who may have read this already on FFN and might be re-reading it here, I am going to finish this fic (on AO3 and on FFN). I'm just transferring what I have up on FFN so far here and then I'm going to finish the whole story up.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Daryl was jostled awake by the halting of the vehicle. He opened his eyes, surprised at how long he must have been out when he saw it was near dark outside. It was long past the time where Carol would have needed headlights but he noticed she'd kept them off. He was impressed. Perhaps he could rely on her more than he'd originally thought.

He'd always known he could rely on her… just maybe not for everything. He'd known when it came to domesticated shit, she was better than he'd ever be – he'd never tasted rabbit stew as good as she'd made it for the group. But when it came to more involved stuff – driving, hunting, keeping watch – well he'd never considered that she might be just as reliable for that sort of stuff as well. He'd made it a point in his life to stop relying on people. It dawned on him now that maybe that was something he was going to have to change.

She glanced over at him after putting the truck into park and smiled at seeing that he was awake. Daryl found himself returning a small half-smile even without thinking about it. He struggled internally to think of something nice to say.

"Ya drive a'right for a woman… I slept the whole time," he muttered.

Carol laughed. "Gee thanks, Daryl. For a woman… haven't you ever had a woman drive you before?"

Daryl felt himself pale. His mind instantly went to Karla. The last woman to drive him anywhere had been his own sister… twenty-two years old and hours before she'd up and left.

_HONK HONK. Daryl glanced up from where he sat back on the porch. He was making arrows to restock some of the ones he'd lost in a hunt that morning. It hadn't been a good hunt. He was annoyed. But he smiled nonetheless when he saw the object of the racket in the driveway._

_Karla. She grabbed the top of the roof and slid her lithe body through the open window so that she sat on the door, her head popped over the roof and she grinned._

_She'd bought a new car – red thing, two doors, at least 5 years old but in mint condition for what it cost._

" _You comin' for a ride or wha'?," she hollered._

" _Like ya can drive tha' shit," Daryl called back good-naturedly. He knew she could drive it. Their old man had always refused to take her for a license – and as far as Daryl knew she hadn't gone on her own – so he had no idea how she'd managed to buy a car. But Daryl had been letting her drive his truck for years now and she was as good a driver as he was at this point. A little reckless, a little too fast, but good reflexes and good eyes. Just like with a crossbow._

He remembered that day well. At the time he'd thought it was the worst day of his life, but he didn't think that held true anymore. There'd been other days… days he'd soon forget… the day his father cut him up, his first encounter with fucking geeks, losing Merle in Atlanta, the day Sophia stumbled out of that barn…

They'd gone for a ride that day, Karla whipping the tiny car around turns as Daryl held on to whatever "oh shit" bar he could find on the passenger side and she'd glanced over at one point and grinned. It was the first time he could remember seeing his sister so happy in a lot of years.

Of course she was happy because after that drive, after they got back to the house, she'd grabbed her shit and left. That was the last time he'd seen her. The thought of it pained him…

"Daryl?," Carol said and he realized he'd been lost in his own thoughts. She was looking at him, her eyes wide with concern and curiosity. "We need to talk…"

His first instinct was to panic. This was it. She was finally going to mention it… the CDC… that night… and he didn't have the first clue what his response should be. Did he pretend he didn't remember? A drunken haze? She hadn't brought it up before, not once, not in all this time… he'd just let it slip to the back of his memory. Okay, that wasn't true. It was _never_ on the back of his memory. But they'd never discussed it. She never brought it up. He assumed maybe she had forgotten. And he'd been fine with that. He liked it that way. It was better that way; he didn't want her to bring it up. His heart was racing as he tried to will something up into his brain, an appropriate response to what he was certain was her next sentence… and then she surprised him.

"Who is this girl?," Carol said softly, pulling something from her bag and it took him a moment to realize it was a picture frame.

He peered at it, feeling his heart continue to pound. It was him… him and Karla. They were twenty… maybe twenty-one in the photo, and he was standing next to her with his arm around her protectively.

"Where'd ya git that?," he asked gruffly raising his eyes to her.

She grimaced; clearly it wasn't a question she wanted to be asked. "I kind of… I kind of stole it. It was on the mantle back at the house… along with this one." She pulled out a second frame and he looked at it. He almost smiled in spite of himself.

He remembered the day. It was the only family portrait he could remember. He and Karla were only kids, ten years old maybe, he wasn't sure anymore; Merle was pretty much an adult by that point. His brother had come home with a split lip and a black eye on picture day. A bar room brawl he'd said. The old man had been pissed.

" _The fuck we even doin' this for?," Daryl muttered watching his father chew out Merle for coming home with a fucked up face. The old man had been saying for weeks they were going to use the old stand-up camera he found in the attic to take a family portrait._

" _Don't say 'fuck', Daryl," Karla said with a sideways grin. She always said that… it was practically a joke between them now._

" _Hey, don't even say you wanna be doin' this?," he said shaking his head._

_Karla shrugged. "It's jus' something for the bastard to remember us after we leave this place…," she said softly._

He should have known then that she was going to leave one day. He didn't even remember what his response to that had been. Maybe he hadn't responded. Maybe Merle and the old man had quit their bickering and they'd gone over to take the picture.

He took the picture frame in his hand, staring at it.

"I'm sorry," Carol said softly and he looked up at her.

"For wha'?"

Carol shrugged. "For taking it, I guess. But it didn't seem right that you leave there with nothing…"

Daryl nodded, then shook his head. "I didn't … I left with somethin' for ya too."

Carol tilted her head inquisitively. "What's that?"

Daryl half-smiled this time, but didn't respond. It was dark out. They were pulled off in the woods, and he wasn't about to get out to get the bow out of the bed at this point. "What was yer question 'gain… the first one?"

Carol nodded, seeming to understand, and said, "the girl… I asked who she was."

Daryl cleared his voice. "My… me and Merle's sister."

Carol nodded, furrowed her brow looking at the photo. "You look alike… were you twins?"

"Yea." He glanced around in the dark outside of the truck through the windows. "We should find a place safer than this… for the night. Inside maybe," he muttered almost as much to himself as to her.

"Daryl?," she said and he looked back at her.

"What was her name?"

He sighed. "Karla… 'er name was Karla." Something flickered in her eyes at his words but he wasn't sure what it could be.

"You said she was dead? I mean you told your father she was dead…"

Daryl met her eyes this time with a hard stare. "Wha' is this? Fuckin twenty questions? This ain't a topic for discussion, Carol… Karla… my ol' man… the family shithole… tha' ain't yer business. Now cut the fuckin 'nquisition, I ain't got shit to say on the subject so quit yer askin'," he snapped. He opened the door with a creak and slid off the seat outside into the darkness, effectively and permanently closing the discussion.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

_It felt good to be inside again… with a shower and real food and books and a warm bed. They'd been at the quarry sleeping in tents for so long that Carol had started to feel like they'd never be inside a building again._

_Many of the others had been drinking and she'd had a glass herself but she'd wanted to keep herself alert… for Sophia. This was still a new place and even though Dr. Jenner seemed fine… well, she was hesitant to trust anyone at this point._

_She tucked Sophia into the bed and then lay down beside her. She sank into the mattress and relished the feeling of comfort that had only felt like a distant memory for so long. She felt as much as heard Sophia's breathing go even as her daughter drifted off into sleep. Carol rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling._

_She closed her eyes… but she could hear the seconds ticking on the clock in the room. She couldn't help but feel unsure about the future. They were here at the CDC and it seemed easy enough to fall into a feeling of safety and comfort. She was clean – truly clean – for the first time in weeks, months, and she was warm and comfortable in a bed. But she couldn't shake her unease._

_Maybe it was the memory of slamming that pickaxe into Ed's skull… over and over… her chest heaving with her sobs as she did it. It felt savage to her now… made her feel dirty. But when she was doing it, she'd been consumed with rage at Ed. He'd been her husband for 24 years, but he'd felt more like her captor than anything else. It had felt good to unleash on him for the first time ever… after he had spent at least 23 of those years unleashing on her on almost a daily basis._

_She sighed. Sleep was not going to come. At least not while her mind was still going. She turned her head to look at Sophia, curled up next to her, fast asleep. Her daughter looked peaceful and her heart swelled at watching her. Sophia was the best thing that had ever happened to Carol… her daughter was the only thing that mattered to her at this point, the only thing that meant something._

_She gingerly rose from the bed. Maybe a book would help her sleep. She went down the hall a ways and found the library again, light still on but empty. She perused the shelves searching for something to read, anything that might lull her into sleep, when a creak in the floor from behind startled her._

_She turned to see Daryl stumbling into the room, his hair wet like he'd just come from a shower, his face reddish from the alcohol that he'd been consuming ever since they'd all eaten dinner. He stopped upon seeing her and wobbled on his feet a bit, his eyes looking at her wide. She was so used to his narrowed glances that she never noticed his eye color before, never noticed how handsome his eyes were. He nodded a greeting; his gaze intent on her._

" _I didn't think anyone else would be up still," she said, the words sounding lame even to her own ears._

" _Didn't mean to startle ya," he muttered moving into the room. "What ya doin' in 'ere?"_

_Carol shrugged as he approached, stopping about a foot or two from where she stood. He was holding a bottle of some kind of liquor, different from what everyone had been drinking before… and she wondered what it was and where he'd gotten it. "I was looking for something to read, I guess… shut my brain off for a while."_

_Daryl nodded thoughtfully. "Not good to think too much," he mumbled, "git ya in trouble that way."_

_She smiled, thinking to herself that this was probably more words than she'd ever heard him speak. "I'm definitely an overthinker. Just can't get out of my own head sometimes."_

_He took a step closer, his balance a little off kilter and extended his hand with the bottle in it. "Alcohol helps too, ya know."_

_She took it almost on instinct, her hand grabbing for the neck of the bottle, her fingers grazing against his as he released the bottle into her grasp. She put the bottle to her lips and tilted back, letting the warm biting liquid slide down her throat. She wasn't much of a drinker and after she swallowed she coughed, holding the bottle in her hand and looking at him again as she caught her breath._

" _Never was much for the hard stuff," she said huskily as she offered the bottle back to him. He reached for the bottle, his hand coming around her own, his fingers warm on her skin and their eyes met. There was a quickening in her belly that she wouldn't have expected, and then somehow his lips were on hers, or hers were on his… it wasn't clear to her who made the move, who stepped forward to bridge the gap and placed lips crushing against lips._

_His lips were as warm and seeking as her own, and she lost her grip on the bottle, his fingers twining with hers as she heard the bottle hit the ground at their feet. Either she pulled him to her or he pulled her against him, but their bodies were then flush against each other, their forms meshing together as they kissed, as her mouth opened for his searching tongue, as her tongue swept its way in and around as well, tasting, trembling, dancing with his._

_She felt one of his hands wrap around her, move up her back, pausing at her neck and then running through the short hair at the back of her head. Her own hands were around him, having let go of the hand that had twined his fingers through hers, and she felt the expanse of sinewy muscle at his back, hard and rippling as he pulled her tighter against him._

_She might have thought for a moment that this was crazy… what were they doing… she didn't even know this man… but it never occurred to her to stop, to say something, she just kept kissing him, and then the bulge of his pants was pressing against the lowest expanse of her stomach and all thoughts were lost._

_Their lovemaking – although she wouldn't have called it that… she'd have called it fucking and she was sure he'd have called it the same – was fervent, furious in its own way, as their bodies matched together like puzzle pieces, each of them hungering for more as they moved in time, keeping pace, rocking, thrusting, pounding flesh against flesh, almost moving as one at a frenetic, riveting rate._

_They hit the edge at the same time, both of them moaning into each other's mouths as he flooded into her and her walls spasmed around him, squeezing every bit of pleasure from him. She was lying on the couch and he was above her, his body trembling in her arms as they came back from it, as the world started moving around them again. They weren't frozen in time anymore, lost in each other; instead they were lying on the couch, in the library of the CDC, half-dressed and still in each other's embrace._

_He looked down at her, their eyes lighting as they met, and he'd leaned down, kissing her lightly on the mouth. She responded to it, her eyes open and still locked with his, letting her mouth widen for him as they kissed softly, sweetly, pleasantly, what could only be described as a lover's kiss._

_She almost felt his stomach flip, the heaving of his innards, almost saw it coming nearly as fast as he did, as the drinking that he was probably used to in his old life but couldn't handle now caught up with him. He broke the kiss in a hurry, launching himself off of her and onto the floor, vomiting the contents of his stomach out onto the carpet. He kept heaving for minutes, tens of them, and she pulled her pants on and came to crouch next to him, keeping vigil. He seemed oblivious of her in his misery at that moment, and she waited until he was finished, until he came to lie on his side on the floor, hunched over with his knees up, almost passed out. She helped to redress his pants, his shirt having already been on the whole time anyway. She cleaned the vomit as best she could, put a blanket over him and once he was completely out; she slipped out of the room, down the hall to her bed and Sophia, and fell fast asleep at last._

_He was fine in the morning at breakfast, the vomiting clearly having helped to clean out any lingering remnants of alcohol before a hangover could develop. He didn't even glance at her when he walked in and she assumed he didn't remember… he'd been drunk, he probably chalked it up to a dream what little he may remember. That's what she told herself…_

Carol woke on the cold floor of the little school they'd found close by, still in the dark of the night, but fresh from a dream of the memory she'd just had. She rolled over a bit and saw Daryl sitting against the wall, awake, keeping watch.

After Daryl had gotten out of the truck, she had gone to follow him and they'd spotted a small school building a short distance away. They'd trekked there with what little supplies they had and secured it – okay, Daryl had secured it – and then bedded down for the night in a storage room that locked from the inside. They had eaten the sandwiches Carol made at the Dixon house and then he'd motioned for her to go to sleep, that he would keep watch.

She swiveled her body up off the floor so that she was sitting, her legs crossed in front of her and he turned his gaze to her.

"I know her," she started, "I know your sister, she's not dead, or at least she wasn't dead the last time I saw her."

The silence that lingered in the air after her words was heavy and thick, so thick it was practically visible, like a haze hanging between them.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

Daryl was silent in the moments that followed Carol's revelation about his sister; his eyes boring through Carol's, his breath caught in his throat, body humming with tension.  _Fuckin what?_ The words were stuck, wrapped like a string around his tongue, tightening to the point of physical pain. Karla couldn't be alive… it'd been fifteen years since he'd last seen her… and he'd looked – Lord, how he'd searched for that girl.

After healing up and leaving home, finding Karla had been his mission. He'd scoured every inch of the state of Georgia. He'd gone to women's shelters and been stared at like some kind of wife beater looking for his last victim. He'd checked hospitals, death records, newspapers… everything he could think of. And he'd never found her. By the time Merle found him, Daryl had become convinced that Karla was gone – dead and buried in some unmarked grave.

Not that she hadn't had it in her to survive when she'd left. She'd survived their old man, and she had all the same skills Daryl had if not more, given the added benefit of her innate kindness. But her spirit had been broken when she'd left, Daryl knew that. That much he remembered. And it had been easy to assume after all those years that she'd been too far gone to make it.

But to be told  _now_ … and by this woman… that his sister might still be alive? Daryl exhaled raggedly as his thoughts jumbled together, as the string around his tongue finally eased.

"How… how ya say she's alive?," Daryl said softly, his eyes flashing anger and his tone menacingly low.

Carol seemed to pale before his eyes and if he wasn't so caught in the heat of the moment, he might have felt poorly about that. He wouldn't have intended to scare her if he'd done so. Whether he was ready to admit it or not, he cared about Carol something deeper than even he understood; but Karla was all he could think about right now. The sister he'd lost, the sister he'd given up on, the sister he'd failed.

"I said she was alive when I last saw her," Carol started to say.

"Well when the fuck was tha'?," Daryl snapped, interrupting. His rage didn't cut at his words though and he kept going, "this wha' those twenty questions was 'bout? Yer fuckin goin on bout who the fuck the girl in the picture was when the whole fuckin time ya 'lready knew?"

"I didn't already know, Daryl," Carol protested scooting across the floor towards him, grabbing one of his flailing arms with her hands, her touch halting him immediately. "I didn't know for sure anyways, I might've suspected, wondered definitely, but I didn't  _know_." Her tone and her gaze were earnest but warm.

His eyes dropped to where her hands were clasping his arm and she let go quickly, pulling her hands back and away, up to her face to rest there against her mouth. His rage had dissipated with her touch, and he could see the concern, the apology, in her eyes. He'd hurt this woman without meaning to and he didn't have the words or the courage to acknowledge it, her pain, the hurt that he had had a hand in causing, and it wasn't the first time he'd failed in that regard...

" _He raped me, Merle, you want to sit there and act like he didn't, go right the fuck on ahead! But your denial about it doesn't change the facts. You were here last night, you fucking know what happened. He…raped…me," Karla's voice was harsh and angry, her face screwed up and furious as she said the words in hushed tones to Merle. It was late, they were alone in the kitchen in what they'd thought was an empty house._

_Neither of them knew that Daryl was standing there in the hallway, listening in on a conversation he clearly wasn't meant to hear. Not that he needed to hear it to know the truth. He had known, he must have known. But she never said the words to him. She never confirmed the truth to him._

_And here she was, screaming at a whisper, baring the truth to Merle. It was the evening of Daryl and Karla's twenty-second birthday and something had changed in his sister… something that had been changing for a long time, but was only now reaching its boiling point. They'd argued earlier – Daryl and Karla – she'd been snappy and off all morning, he'd assumed that she was mad he'd gone out the night before, and she'd refused to talk about it. So he'd gotten frustrated and left in what he didn't yet realize was a pattern forming in his behavior – 'fuck it, when you're frustrated, just leave'._

_In a matter of weeks Karla would leave, but he hadn't known that standing there in that darkened hallway, in the dead of night, listening in on a conversation he hadn't been meant to hear._

" _Shut the fuck up, Karla," Merle hissed. Daryl could hear him moving around in the kitchen, stalking around their sister, and he could practically feel the anger radiating out of the room._

_Karla shook her head, snorted softly. "Deaf ears you got, Merle. You got some damn deaf ears. You're his bitch, you know, just like me, and just like Daryl… you might think yer better than that, better than us, but at the end of the day ya ain't – you're chattel, fuckin branded and owned by that piece of trash excuse for a father."_

_Daryl had never heard his sister talk like that. She was never cruel, never nasty to him or to Merle… even to the old man; she was quiet, restrained, but never cruel._

_He winced as he heard the slap that must have been Merle's blow to her face. Daryl knew he should go in, he should make his presence known. Merle wouldn't slap Karla if he knew Daryl was there because Daryl wouldn't allow it. But a part of him was afraid to step inside that room. A part of him didn't want her to know that he knew. That he knew this secret that he'd probably known for years but had never wanted to believe._

_He knew the reasons Karla trembled at night, the reasons why she was always tired, staying up until all hours because a part of her was afraid of what might happen in her sleep, what might wake her. But she never told him. He first suspected when they were seventeen, but he'd never asked. He didn't want to know. He just made sure to be there for her, to keep her safe however he could – safe from Merle's ruling iron fist, and safe from whatever demons their old man had in him._

_And hearing Karla rant on to Merle that night… all Daryl could feel was his failure. He hadn't protected her. Not the night before, he'd failed her, and he knew it. And for what… for a cheap lay in the back of Jack's Bar with a girl whose name he could barely remember – Ronnie? Jennie? Something that ended with an "-ie". He hadn't been here, at home… where he should've been. If Daryl had been where he should have been and not eyeball deep in the cunt of a whore he didn't care about, he could've protected Karla, he could've kept her safe._

_He heard the sound of footsteps as one of them moved toward the hallway and Daryl ducked inside his room, feeling like a roach fleeing the light, a coward in the night, afraid to get caught knowing, afraid to change the course of things when what he knew – this place – was all he'd ever known._

"Ya tell me then, tell me bout my sister… tell me bout when ya last saw 'er," Daryl said with a frown. His emotions were conflicted… equal parts hope that he might find the sister he still so deeply missed, that he might finally feel whole and complete again, and equals parts shame that he'd lost her to begin with, that he had heard that conversation weeks before she'd left and that he still hadn't gone with her, that to the very end Daryl had defended Merle – not the old man, never their bastard old man – but that he hadn't defended  _her._


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

Carol had been prepared for his anger. In some ways, she even welcomed it. At least he was  _talking_ ; She'd been more worried that when she mentioned Karla, Daryl would just shut down. He was good at locking himself down and blowing her off rather than actually communicating. He'd done it when she'd first mentioned Karla, and she'd been sure he'd do it again. But something broke down the wall – or at the very least cracked it.

He was frowning and his voice was low and soft as he spoke hesitantly, almost as if he was afraid to know, "Ya tell me then, tell me bout my sister… tell me bout when ya last saw 'er."

" _You should leave him, Carol, you know it's only a matter of time before he starts in on Sophia…," Karla whispered, conscious of the fact that Ed was in the next room watching one of his "shows"._

_The door dividing the living room and the kitchen was closed, but they could still hear the slight moans and mumblings of sexual references through the paper thin walls. Ed did this every day after work – assuming he'd even been to work that day – tucked himself away in the living room with a cooler full of cold beers and a handful of videos, some professional and some of the home movie variety. He barely mumbled hello to her and Sophia most afternoons, although occasionally he'd murmur something derogatory about what either of them were wearing or doing. She always kept quiet, confident that he'd disappear into that room soon enough for "daddy's special alone time." At any rate, she didn't care what he did as long as he did it by himself. It kept him at bay until after Sophia was off to bed, which at least kept Sophia from seeing what Ed became at night._

_Carol hid the bruises well from her just barely twelve year old daughter, but she knew it was only a matter of time before Sophia started asking questions. Carol was biding her time until that day came. She wanted Sophia to be a child for as long as possible. She'd kept Ed from going after Sophia for all these years, and she'd be damned if she'd break the façade now._

_She was less skilled however at hiding the evidence of Ed's abuse from Karla._

_They'd been friends for nearly four years now and they'd never spent longer than a day or two apart. Karla's two daughters, Nicole and Drea – ages 13 and 11 – were Sophia's best friends, her partners in crime. It was tradition that every day after school Carol – who wasn't allowed to work – would watch Nicole and Drea so Sophia and they could play, and most afternoons Karla would come over after work to sit and talk. It had been like that ever since they'd become neighbors._

_When Karla had moved in next door, it had been just her and the girls. She never talked about their fathers, although Carol knew that they didn't have the same one. Carol didn't ask about Karla's past and Karla didn't ask about Carol's. Carol liked that Karla didn't pry… there was too much she wouldn't have wanted her friend to know and she assumed that street went both ways. As far as Carol was concerned, they knew each other in the now and that was what mattered._

" _I'm serious, Carol. You know I'm right. I can help you… Norm and I, we can both help you," Karla said forcefully._

_Carol raised a hand to her mouth and said nervously, "Oh God, Norm knows?"_

_Karla had met her fiancé Norman almost a year before. Their courtship had been somewhat whirlwind but no one could deny that he made Karla happy, that he was more a father to her little girls than anyone else could ever be. He was a good guy, had a son that was Drea's age, and he'd finally moved in to the house next door a few months back. He was always pleasant to Carol too, and he'd even come over to fix her front door one night after Ed had broken it during one of his fits._

_Karla gave Carol a knowing look. "Of course, he knows. Our houses are practically on top of each other…," she pursed her lips and sighed before continuing, "I mean, Carol, it's been all I can do to keep him from coming over here at night and putting a stop to it."_

_Carol flushed, humiliated at the thought of people hearing what went on at her house in the evenings after Sophia was tucked into bed._

_Karla shook her head, grasped Carol's hand in her own and pulled it down away from her face. "Don't do that, now, we don't judge you. We love you. But we don't want this to keep being your life. Or Sophia's life."_

_Tears sprang to Carol's eyes. She knew her friend was right. She'd known for a long time that she'd have to leave sooner or later, that staying here was only putting Sophia at risk with each passing year. But she'd never been on her own; she'd married Ed so young, seventeen and stuck under her stepmother's thumb. A tear slid down her cheek; she looked helplessly at Karla and she nodded – it was time to leave._

That was three days before the world went to hell… before the first reports of walkers reached their tiny town.

"I was going to leave Ed… she'd convinced me that I could do it, that her and her fiancé would help me. Sophia and I were supposed to go with Norman – her fiancé – on the third day and meet Karla and the girls at the train station. We were all going to leave. Karla had said she knew of a place, a safe place where we could go, someone who would know how to help us." Carol paused, the memory of Karla's words stopping her.

" _I haven't seen him in a while, a really long time actually, he might even be pretty pissed at me right now… but I know he'll help us," Karla's smile was wistful as she spoke._

Carol wondered if it could have been Daryl… if Karla had planned to bring them all to Daryl in order to escape Ed. She was struck by the irony of that notion. It was dark in the little room, and she was sitting in front of him, cross-legged, her hands in her lap. One hand automatically went to her mouth as realization dawned.

"She was going to  **you** …," Carol breathed and Daryl blinked at her in the darkness, his eyes narrowing.

"Ya don't know tha'," he muttered, "ain't never contacted me in fifteen fuckin years." He paused, taking a breath to compose himself. "Wha' happened on the third day?"

Carol frowned. The thought entering her mind that if the world hadn't gone to hell, if everything that had happened hadn't happened, and instead she'd been successful in Karla's exit strategy – she might have met Daryl anyway. And Sophia might have lived… She forcibly removed that very idea before it took root in her brain and answered his question before her emotions got the better of her, "it all blew up…"

" _Run, Carol! Get the hell out of here," Norm screamed as the walkers swarmed. They'd been stopped on the road on the way to the train station. There was a roadblock ahead but they hadn't seen what it was about. Most people had gotten out of their cars and were standing outside, struggling to see, or looking impatient in the Georgia heat._

_Norm, Carol, and Sophia had all gotten out and were waiting when the panic started. She hadn't even known what it was at that point. They'd heard a scream a few cars ahead, and Norm had moved forward to see what he could see. Then people at the cars in front of them started to yell, turning and running towards where Carol and Sophia stood at the car. She'd seen a glimpse of what could only be described as a wall of people coming toward them when she'd heard Norm yell for them to run, to get out of there._

" _We can't leave you!," she hollered back only to see him shake his head._

" _Just go! Go home! I have to find my girls! Go back to the house… we'll meet you there!"_

_Carol had grabbed Sophia's hand and turned to run. A man was coming at her, his mouth gaping open, his eyes sunken in and he growled as he reached for them._

" _Mom!," Sophia screeched, and Carol moved her body in between the man and her daughter, used the force of her weight to knock the man's groping hands and snapping teeth away from them, and they ran, as hard and as fast as they could._

"They didn't come back to the house… I waited all night and half the next day, but when Ed said we had to leave… well, I didn't have anywhere else to go."

She was ashamed of having left… of not staying, of not waiting… what if they'd come back only to find her gone? What if they'd risked their lives to save her and her daughter, and died in the process? What if she was giving Daryl hope of finding his sister when Carol really had no idea if she was even alive?

The sobs came from nowhere, tears over all of it. Daryl's father; memories of her past; breaking apart from Rick and the others; the pain of losing Sophia; relief at losing Ed; that failed attempt at escaping her life before everything had been turned upside down; Karla and her girls, Norman and his son… Carol hunched over as she wept, her hands covering her face as she cried deep heart-wrenching sobs. Her grief so raw and so intense she barely registered that Daryl had come to rest a hand upon her back and was gently, and somewhat awkwardly, rubbing back and forth.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

Daryl's hand moved automatically to her back as Carol hunched over, sobbing into her hands, her head practically in her lap. Her shoulders shook and he kept his hand at her back, rubbing in circles, his calloused palm moving against the soft cotton of her shirt. He could feel her body trembling as she cried, the hardness of her taut back shaking against his touch.

Whatever possessed him to touch her, he had no idea. But now that his hand was there, he didn't want to take it back. He felt her frailness, but he also felt her strength.

His mind was racing. Carol didn't know if Karla was alive. There was no way of knowing if Karla and her kids… Lord, his sister had kids… he was an _uncle_ … there was no way of knowing if they'd made it out of Carol's hometown. She hadn't even seen them that day, she'd said. All she knew was that Karla's whatever-he-was – Norman – had been going to find her. Daryl knew that wasn't a lot to go on. Hell, it didn't tell him anything. He had no way of knowing Karla's whereabouts, Karla's status, alive or dead… she was as lost to him now as she had been fifteen years ago.

He'd lost Merle to Atlanta… he may never see his brother again, he'd accepted that. He was confident though that Merle was still alive. As long as he wanted to be alive, Merle would be alive. He'd grown numb to the loss of Merle. Somehow, though, he never grew numb to the loss of Karla.

He'd given up hope of ever finding her years ago, left her for dead in his mind… but he never grew numb to the loss. He felt the loss of her every time he saw a young girl with brown hair and blue eyes, wearing a look of disdain on her face, but a sparkle of sweetness to her eyes. He felt the loss of her when he hefted his crossbow, when he was reminded of the first time they'd hunted with them, sidling up beside Old man Charleson as he beckoned them.

" _Git 'ere, ya gotta really grab 'old-a this weapon… they's hand-fuckin-made with spit and blood on the strings… ain't for no pussies…," Herr Charleson gave a smirk at Karla's face. "Ain't meanin' ya lil' lady… meanin' ain't for no dainty darlins. You'll-a handle this weapon jus' fine, tough as nails ya is."_

_Daryl and Karla – eleven years old at the time – stood beside him, standing at the back end of his property, where his land dropped off into the woods and a person could see for miles. There was a small buck about eighty feet downhill and downwind, and that was the target that Herr Charleson had in his sights._

_Herr Charleson had to be about eighty years old by now, Daryl couldn't help but think. The man was ancient. And crotchety as hell, but not to Daryl and not to Karla. It had been Herr Charleson who had broken up the worst of the beatings up to that point in his life that Daryl had been dealt by his father._

_Frank had been advancing on Daryl, all the way up the stone and gravel driveway, a belt in one hand and a curse on his lips as Daryl had backed up rapidly, losing his balance and stumbling onto his ass. He'd already taken about a half a dozen hits, his face bloody, one eye already swelling up. He'd been sure that Frank would've killed him that day. He'd been ten and sure as shit that he was about to meet God. And then Charleson had loomed large over his tiny frame, standing at Daryl's head and staring down fucking Frank Dixon on a fucking bad day with half a bottle of gin in his stomach and murder on his mind. Daryl hadn't known who to be more afraid of in that moment. Charleson was known by the neighborhood kids as the Mainline Murderer and stories ran rampant that the man lined his basement with bodies._

" _Fuckin' ay, Frankie… wha' the fuck ya doin' out 'ere?," Charleson had said, all mild-mannered like he wasn't saving the life of the almost-sniveling boy cowering at his feet wearing pants that were all but pissed on at this point._

_Frank had stepped back… never one to beat his boy in front of an audience, gave a look of warning to Daryl that said plain as can be 'don't come home for days, ya little rat' and Daryl had dropped his gaze in acknowledgement._

_As Frank had retreated, Charleson had been chuckling, glanced down at Daryl and said, "Yer ol' man, 'is bites as big as 'is bark, ain't it? Come on now, gots a bed ya can borr'w."_

_Daryl had respected Herr Charleson since that day. He and Karla were the only kids in the neighborhood that never egged his house. Daryl even threw a few punches once to shut the mouth of a useless piece of crap kid who was going on about the Mainline Murderer in the school yard._

_There were days, weeks even, after that first encounter when Daryl and Karla had headed off to school with nothing in their lunch satchels, stomachs growling loud enough to wake the whole neighborhood, only to be stopped along the way by Old man Charleson with packaged up peanut butter and olive sandwiches. He'd seemed to keep a close eye on the two of them, and when he'd offered to show them how to hunt… it'd been exactly what he and his sister had needed._

_Daryl stood next to Karla, holding the custom crossbows that Herr had made them. The bows were weighty in their hands, awkward, but somehow Daryl had felt the first tingle of confidence as he hefted it up and aimed under Herr Charleson's watchful gaze._

Karla and he had brought home two deer that day… one apiece. Old man Charleson had died within a month of that day, but he'd managed to instill in both Dixon twins a love of the hunt that hadn't waned in all of Daryl's life.

Carol wasn't crying any longer, she had stilled beneath his touch and she seemed to be holding her breath. He slowly lifted his hand from her back, hovered there an inch above for a second, and then made a fist that he pulled back and placed on his lap. Carol sat up, her face pale and drawn in the dim light as she looked at him.

He wondered briefly how long he could continue to keep his feelings for this woman at bay. Even he had to admit to himself that they were growing with each day he traveled with her… that she had somehow wormed her way into his heart in all this time he'd known her. That perhaps his connection with her went beyond his memories of the sister he'd lost all those years ago, that perhaps the root of his feelings for Carol were far deeper than he was ready to acknowledge.

He opened his mouth, with every intention of telling her about the crossbow he'd gotten for her back at his homestead… Karla's crossbow... or maybe that he trusted her, that he'd let her take him to where she'd lived before to see if his sister was still there. But somehow when the words came out, they weren't what he'd intended them to be.

"Ya tasted like raspberries… tha' night at the CDC… never could figure out how ya managed to do tha'… taste like fuckin berries when the world's all gone to shit."


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Carol blushed in response to his words, her eyes wide and staring at him. She was caught off guard, completely unsure how she should respond. What did he even mean? Raspberries? Was he being crass? He  _remembered_  the CDC? All this time she'd been acting like it never happened and he'd known it happened all along.

His face was still frozen into a look of shock at his own words. It was clear he hadn't meant to say them. What had he meant to say? She still wasn't sure on how to respond… and then she remembered.  _Raspberries_. A tiny smile crossed her lips.

"Lip gloss," she said softly, her eyes holding his gaze as she looked at him shyly, "Sophia wanted us to wear lip gloss to bed… so we'd look pretty in our dreams. It was raspberry flavored."

" _I'm not tired," Sophia whispered in the darkness and Carol rolled over to face her daughter. They'd only been lying there in the silence of that CDC bedroom for mere moments._

" _If you close your eyes, baby girl, you'll fall asleep," Carol said._

" _I keep seeing daddy… as… you know… one of them."_

_Carol frowned. She didn't feel the loss of Ed, not in her heart and not in her head. All she'd managed to feel since Ed had met his maker was relief. It was a cold thing to feel though, and not something she wanted to share with her daughter. She'd spent twelve years trying to keep Sophia from the truth about Ed, and she wasn't about to blow it now._

_Carol didn't know how much Sophia knew about her father or about her parents' marriage. Ed hadn't been the most doting of fathers that was for sure. Carol couldn't think of a time where the two of them had been alone without Carol's presence in all of Sophia's life. For the most part, Carol had been successful in keeping Sophia out of it, away from Ed's disturbances, in keeping her safe. And as far as Carol knew the girl had never been touched, had never been struck. What she might have heard, however, Carol had no way of knowing._

" _Your daddy's not one of them, baby girl, he's gone and he's not coming back." Silence greeted Carol's response and she wondered if Sophia had fallen asleep. Then she felt the bed shift slightly and Sophia had rolled over so that they were eye to eye._

" _He can't hurt you anymore?," Sophia said softly, her eyes glistening with tears in the darkness._

_Carol lifted a hand to touch her daughter's face, wiping a stray tear away, and then tracing the girl's jawline. "No, Sophia, he can't hurt anyone anymore."_

_Sophia smiled, and then wriggled in the bed, to flip over, rummaging through Carol's bag that was beside the bed. She turned back around with the object of her desire clenched in her little hand and she held it up for Carol to see._

" _Can I wear it to bed?," Sophia asked._

_It was a small tube of lip gloss, in Sophia's favorite flavor – raspberry – and Carol had been holding onto it ever since they'd first left home. It was mostly gone now, and Carol had been keeping it in her bag and away from Sophia so as to conserve what little was left._

" _Why do you want to wear that old stuff to bed?," Carol asked._

" _Mo-om," Sophia said with a slight whine to her tone, before catching the look that Carol was giving her. Sophia gave a contrite frown and continued, "because I want to look pretty in my dreams."_

_Carol chuckled at that, shaking her head, but taking the lip gloss nonetheless. "Okay then, so you can look pretty… but I'll put it on you so you don't waste too much."_

_She sat up slightly, opened the gloss tube, and then leaned over to apply just the slightest bit to her daughter's lips. When she went to close up the tube, Sophia's hand on her arm stopped her._

" _You too, mom, you should be pretty too."_

_Carol smiled kindly, humored her daughter by applying the gloss to her own lips, and then said, "alright now, we're both pretty, off to dreamland for you."_

Carol couldn't remember what had happened to that lip gloss now. Maybe Sophia had had it with her when she'd gotten lost in the woods. Or maybe it had been left at the CDC, on the bedside table that she'd put it down on after putting it on her lips. At any rate, she remembered putting it on now, the slight smell of raspberries in her nose as she tried to fall asleep that night. Tried and failed… leading her to head over to the library, where Daryl had found her that night looking for a book.

Daryl blinked at her, his face unreadable. Finally, after what seemed like forever, he averted his eyes, his face growing still, his expression pained and shameful. "I'm sorry… shouldn't-a jus' sprung that on ya… I jus'... I… uh... I…" His voice was a low mumble as he stammered, he closed his mouth, shifting his eyes up to meet hers and cleared his throat.

Carol waited patiently. She knew whatever he needed to say needed to be said and she'd wait all night in the dark for him to get it out. Ever since that night at the CDC… she'd wondered how it could be possible that a man like this – that this man – could be so unsure around a woman, could be so unsure around simple, mousy  _her_ … all she'd ever been was Jolene's doormat, Ed's wife, Sophia's mom.

She knew exactly why  _she_  was unsure… Ed was all she knew. The life she'd led before all of this was all she knew. But this man… this man who pretended for months that he didn't remember having slept with her, who said the wrong thing, or said nothing at all, but who somehow still managed to reach her… with a glance, with a flower, with the smallest and innocuous of actions, searching for Sophia, leaving the group with her… this man, Daryl, was the polar opposite of everything she'd ever known. And somehow, in these last few days he'd become all she'd ever need, all she could want.

His eyes were still on her, and he swallowed thickly. He glanced down at his hands, and Carol slid forward across the floor so that their knees were touching and he looked back up at her. "I… Carol, I jus' need ya to know that it didn't mean nothin' to me… tha' night… it didn't mean nothin'… in fact… er… ahem… it meant a lot actually… more than ya could-a known."

Carol did the only thing that came natural; she leaned forward, found his mouth with hers and kissed him – letting her actions speak more clearly than her words ever could.


End file.
